Do you ever feel like you’re going through life without a clear sense of direction or purpose? In this episode of “The Quilters Coach Podcast,” I explore the profound impact of discovering and embracing your true self on your personal transformation journey. It’s not just about achieving goals or adopting traits you admire in others, but about uncovering and nurturing the authentic qualities that make you unique.
In this episode, we delve into the idea that real transformation begins with a deep understanding of who you are at your core. I share insights on how to embark on this journey of self-discovery, emphasizing the importance of looking beyond societal expectations and superficial markers of success. We discuss practical steps to connect with your inner self, such as journaling, meditation, and mindful reflection, and how these practices can lead to a more fulfilling and purposeful life.
If you are ready to lose weight and change the way you think about hunger, sign up for the lifetime access membership for Love Yourself Thin! Doors are open and you can find all the information by clicking here.
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
- Uncovering Your True Self: Techniques to explore and understand your authentic desires, values, and strengths.
- Breaking Free from External Expectations: How to differentiate between what you truly want and what society expects of you.
- Creating a Life Aligned with Your Authentic Self: Strategies for setting goals and making decisions that reflect your genuine aspirations and values.
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- If you are ready to lose weight and change the way you think, sign up for the lifetime access membership for Love Yourself Thin! Doors are open and you can find all the information by clicking here.
- Leave me a review in Apple
Full Episode Transcript:
158. How to Guarantee Your Own Before and After (plot twist edition)
Have you given up on your own before and after and just stay up late eating popcorn while watching rom coms and dreaming of a life that could be?
My name is Dara Tomasson and I am the Quilter’s Coach. This is Podcast 158, How to Guarantee Your Own Before and After Plot Twist Edition.
Let me share with you what’s really going on with your own before and after. I am going to share with you some strategies, some tools, and some tips.
A step by step process to help you to do that. And if you are watching this on YouTube, you can see that I have the download worksheet customised for this podcast. If you’re listening to it, you just need to go to the show notes and click download. Print so that you can see these amazing worksheets that just have it all laid out for you.
I’m a big believer in slowing things down and working through the difficulties that you have because you’re a human and being a human means that it gets messy. We have things we want to do. We have things that we don’t always have success with and I’m here to help you with that.
Before we dive into the episode though, I always love to share a win from one of the members in my membership and I have lots to choose from. One of the things that I’m focusing on this year when I talk about the wins, I’m not just sharing about the wins for the members, but the people around them and their lives.
One of my members went on an amazing trip to Bali and Thailand, but unfortunately the organisers were not so organised. It was one of those situations where it just makes you crazy and you want to scream and shout.
But it’s not going to make a difference because of the lack of organisation. She made the decision that it would be better for her just to return home and to not have to fight or argue with the organisers. but the reason I’m sharing this with you is that a friend went with her and she was able to show her friend that you can stand up for yourself.
You can get your own back. You can make decisions and you don’t have to worry about the repercussions of your own actions because you’re responsible for you and they’re responsible for them and you can resolve things in your own way. They were able to see the monkeys and be able to do some really cool things.
But the most important thing was she was able to truly get her own back and make a decision powerfully, stand behind her decision and then move forward and feel empowered with what happens when you learn these tools. When you show up for yourself, you learn and grow. So happy for her and her friend.
The other thing about this is as she’s moving forward in her life, making decisions, which we’re going to be talking about today she has so much more trust in herself and she has so many more tools of ways to ask beforehand and to get clarity and to have backup plans. All those things that are just going to make you feel a lot more confident moving forward in your own life.
You also give yourself more permission to want what you want and then go after it. One of the main purposes of this podcast is to show you that you don’t have to keep doing things the same way. I think one of the hardest things about being a human is that we have this wiring
We have the wiring of the motivational triad, which means stay safe, seek pleasure and conserve energy. Is in our instincts of, we want to not rock the boat. We want to conserve energy. We want to be a part of the tribe and be acceptable and all of those things. Our higher brain is always wanting us to move forward, to feel empowered, to not stress and worry about what other people think, because what we think is the most important.
When we get our own back, we can just move forward in our own lives so powerfully. This is the concern that I have when I work with women, because I say, Hey, listen. Let’s do something that you want to do. Let’s be powerful in your own life. It goes against our instincts, right? Stay safe, seek pleasure, conserve energy.
You’re not staying safe. If you change, you’re not staying safe. You’re actually not conserving energy when you’re figuring out how to do something new.
As a life coach and my job in my membership for my clients is to help them to overcome those natural instincts and to truly step into their own power. Today’s episode is going to be difficult because your, brain has recorded a lot of evidence of times when you got really excited and you wanted to make a change and you flopped on your face because it took effort and it was hard and it was challenging and you didn’t always get it the first time or the seventh time or the 27th time.
Today I want to talk about how we are going to be able to guarantee our own before and afters and how to really buck the system. So we’re going to use neuroscience to help us to use our brain in the best way. Now, I do want to remind you that neuroscience, we are just scratching the surface of what’s possible.
we’re having more and more experts come and help us understand how the brain works. That’s one of my fun jobs as a life coach is to help tap into the brain power. I remember when I was a little girl thinking, we don’t really know how to use our brains. Like I knew that. And even one of my clients who was a PT.
What she learned 30, 40 years ago is irrelevant now because we know so much more of how the human body is able to re, we’re able to see how powerful the human body is to regenerate, to change, to grow and evolve. We used to think that once you had something broken or Something you couldn’t, it couldn’t be repaired fully and we are learning so much more. Let’s go into the meat of this podcast. I’m really excited.
So what would make up your perfect before and after? Now, this is a really hard question because so many of us Don’t let ourselves dream. So many of us don’t let ourselves think or dream or even imagine.
I did meet the cousin, but it was 20 years ago and I barely remembered it. And I was just their hostess for the last two days. They live about 40 miles north of London. And they also have a place in France, in the south of France, in Antibes. I lived in France for 18 months. When I was 21, and then also when I was 19, I lived in the south of France.
I remember driving through those places and thinking how beautiful it was and how much I loved France. They’re just talking about their flat in the south of France. I was thinking, I would like to have a flat in the south of France. I would like to do those things. but if I didn’t ever let myself dream, when I was 19 and I talked to my parents about whether they know anyone in France that I could work for and I could work it out.
I was willing to just go for it. I would never have had that transformation. I would never have given myself all of those really cool experiences. There were some really hard experiences and they really helped me to grow up. Unless you give yourself permission to dream, you’re not really going to go anywhere. This is a tricky one, right? It’s a tricky one because you can have a lot of those words in your head saying who are you? You’re just this person, this third child of six kids, Like why would you even want, that’s so selfish of you to want to have a flat in the South of France, or it would be so selfish of you to, who fill in the blanks of want to be thin or want to have a better marriage.
You’ve been blessed with so much. You shouldn’t want more. That’s a huge one that I coach people on all the time. It’s even something that I struggle with. I have an amazing husband. I have five incredible kids. They are all very devoted to God and to Jesus.
They have really good hearts. I have a home. I have a beautiful studio and now I have a great body. I can move it. I’m not in pain all the time. Like it’s incredible. I want more because I want to help more. I want to help more women. So there’s sometimes a disconnect of saying, Oh, but are you really grateful because you want more?
This episode is there to help you and to say, yes, it’s okay. It’s actually good that you want more. I’m going to go to the six steps of how you can do that in just a moment. Before we can go into the six steps of how to guarantee your transformation, let’s talk about what is your before. Just like when you look in the mirror, you always have your thoughts about what the mirror is a reflection of what you look like, or when you step on the scale or the number, how much money you have in the bank, how much debt you have, how much
Fabric you have, how many unfinished projects you have, how many finished projects you have, how many, there’s lots of different ways of assessing the life that you have and what you’re doing in it. What is your before now to break that? That’s pretty ominous, right? It’s a big deal.
You’re like my whole life, but I want you to break it down. Let’s just even actually today I’m doing this fun exercise where I wrote down everything that I wanted to do so I have this piece of paper, and then when I had to add things that I did, I actually wrote that on the list.
I have this, so by the end of the day, I’m going to see all the things that I actually did in my day, as opposed to. You start out your day saying these are the things I want to do. Then things obviously come up. Like even today we had to go get the car repaired. Then the bank was, there’s a big glitch today in the computer systems. It’s gonna be interesting to see what my realistic day is and what I wanted to get done.
I want you to just take notes of what your current everyday life looks like. Then I want you to break down what is your stash level? What’s your UFOs? What’s your quality time with family, quality time with yourself. What about exercise? What about your quality of sleep?
What does your current life look like now for some of you who love Harry Potter as much as me? I don’t know if you remember, I believe it was the first book when he goes into Hogwarts and he finds the mirror, I think it’s called the mirror of transformation.
It’s like your deepest darkest desire. When he looks in the mirror, he sees his mom and dad who are with him and he’s a family. We’re going to go to the future mirror in just a moment, but I want you to stay in the reality mirror. This is the no filter mirror, right? When you put on Instagram or whatever, and you put your like, I look a little scary, I just woke up, I’m seeing all these wrinkles, versus the filter that takes all the wrinkles out and gives you extra eyelashes.
Please take a moment and do that. I’m very serious. It’s really great to do an inventory on your life, just like we can do an inventory of our fabric or our food storage or maybe our friendships. This is a really helpful tool because it helps us to see where we really are.
Then it creates a baseline. The next one is what do you want your future life to look like? This could be a little bit ominous, but think about Harry Potter. He looks in this mirror. He was an orphan. What he really would love is to be with his parents. I’ve just finished actually calling, feeling the fear and doing it anyway. One of the things that she talks about is when we put all of our eggs in the same basket. If everything that’s important in our life is our marriage or if everything that’s important in our life is our body, then if something doesn’t go well with that marriage or our body, then our whole life crashes.
She talked about how you have a life that’s whole and complete. These are really good categories you can write these down: contribution. How are we going to what kind of, how do we want to be a contributor in this world?
Would be volunteering. It would be mentoring maybe. So it’s a, have a balanced life. How much time in our life do we want to spend contributing to the world in some way?
She said, just reach out to them, to the kids. Just every once in a while, just text them, let them know that you love them, you’re thinking of them. That’s a great suggestion. What about fam? Family, how much time do you want to spend with family and what do you want that time to look like?
What about relationships? For example, do I want to build a relationship with my nieces and nephews? Do I want to show them I care or love them or even my own siblings? Also a hobby. She says, what is it that you want to do that’s a hobby and how much time do you want to spend on that?
Alone time. How much alone time do you want to have? Work. How much time are you spending with work and what’s an ideal amount of time and leisure? It was interesting when we did this exercise as a membership, some people were really struggling with the difference between hobby and leisure time
they’re different and you can decide how they’re going to be different. Personal growth time. Are you doing your journaling? Are you doing the thought downloads? Are you learning the life coaching tools like life is 50, 50 to be balanced or emotional adulthood where nobody can be responsible for you?
Then the last category is friends. How much time do you want to spend with that? The reason I went through that grid is because. That way it can break down what, like how you can actually classify. Even productivity. You can write that down. What about being financially responsible?
What do I want my future self to look like? Needs to be broken down in. I spend time in nature. I develop relationships. I have this, I have maybe I’ll start a book club or a quilt stitching club. Maybe I joined a guild. So then I can look at all the different aspects of my life and then I can plan for those because now I have better parameters and I have a better idea of how I can direct my path
I serve in my church calling. I spend some one on one time with my husband when we can. The rest of the time is taking care of kids, going to basketball, feeding them groceries, laundry, connecting with them, talking to them, building that relationship. Okay. All right. So now if you’re thinking, ah, Dara I don’t really know.
Or you might be thinking I’ve tried this in the past and I’ve failed miserably. I get it. But that’s why I’m excited to share with you these six steps that I came up with. You can modify them as you go and you can also take what you want and leave whatever, like these are just suggestions.
I want to reiterate that the way to be a completely successful person is to create your own success story. In order to be a successful person, the only way you can do that is if you put on the mantle or the hat or however you want to say it to become your own best boss.
If you’re not sure who you want to be and what that looks like, guess what? Let’s get some clues. Who do you admire? Who are you attracted to on Instagram or on podcasts or on YouTube? Who do you gravitate towards? Then I want you to ask yourself why. Why does that person create so much magnetic pull?
Is it because they’re really unique and they’re not afraid to use their voice? Is it that they stand up for people? Is it that they are super creative and they are just, they don’t worry about people’s judgement? What is it? That’s going to give you some really powerful clues. And then who you’re attracted to and why?
Who do you admire and why? What is it about them? And then how often do you say, I really wish that I could fill in the blanks. This is the key. You then say, because I fill in the key, I want to be more influential. I want to be more calm. I want to be more laid back. I want to be more empowered, whatever it is. Pay attention. To what they’re saying. and then move forward. Okay. So the first one, the step, this is the step to guarantee your transfer, your own personal transformation.
The first one is to do an inventory of the past and see where you are. So this is looking in the mirror. This is like getting a current view of you.
It’s weird, it was helpful and it’s a good baseline. I’m curious to go back there and see how far I’ve progressed in the last three years or so. Now I want you to decide what you really want. So it goes back to the proverbial like three, if you could have three wishes, what would they be?
So it really helps you focus on what you really want. When you can actually start spending time thinking about what you really want, You get power. It’s awesome. Now I want you to try new things and take notes. So take those things. Oh, sorry. Number three, write down what you really want.
You have to write it down. There is, like countless, research out there on the importance of writing it down. I just finally wrote my vision board and I didn’t go and get a bunch of magazines and I didn’t even do it on Pinterest. I literally got a little sheet of paper, like a nine by 13 paper and in the middle I put what I want my future self to look like, my future life to look like.
And then I just drew sheep. I want sheep. And then I drew, like, all the different things and I wrote it down. I wrote it down, you need to write it down and you need to be clear and unapologetic. The fourth thing is to try new things and to take notes. So when you pursue that goal, I want you to evaluate it.
I want you to take notes of what’s going on, what’s happening. And then number five is to evaluate and tweak. So let’s say you wanted to finish, one of those is amazing, what is the Lori Holtz farmer’s wife or something? Lori Holtz has some pretty intricate projects or the farmer’s wife quilt where it’s very detailed.
Evaluating would say, Hey, I woke up this morning. I was going to finish that block. And then so and so called and they wanted me to take care of the kids or when my husband asked me to do this thing, instead of saying, I can do that in three hours, I just stopped everything I did that thing. So then, You evaluate what went well, what didn’t go so well, and what can I do better next time?
We’re just constantly doing this. We’re constantly saying, hey, what went well? So we can pat ourselves on the back and say what didn’t go so well. Now we can be honest and be honest. See what’s going on and then what can I do better? It’s a what am I gonna tweak or what am I gonna do differently?
Then it’s creating that ownership for yourself. And then the very last and most important part and I Even though I’m a fun mom. My son says you can either be fun or you can be funny. I forget this one. It’s the perfectionist recovery in me. I get it, but the thing is the reason we’re doing all of this. What is the reason we’re doing all of this? Is it to earn our worth and is it to be a better person?
It’s because it’s more fun. Now I want to say you can contribute more. Like for me, for example, I went to the castle sandcastle competition yesterday and there’s a bunch of volunteers and there were Victoria quilts.
I said, Oh, Hey guys, guess what? You’re in luck. I’m a professional quilter. I’m really good at quilting. I can pull some quilts for you. I’d be happy to do that. They were thrilled. Am I a more worthwhile person? No, but I can contribute in a way that not everyone can.
Not everyone is as good at long arming as me. But does that mean I’m a better person? No, it’s not like our worth as a person is on a scale. from down on the ground to up in the sky. And then you move up and down on this human value scale. If you gain a pound, it doesn’t mean that you go less on the human value scale because the truth of the matter is there’s no such thing as the human value scale.
Going from the ground to the earth. it’s not stratified. it’s not structured that way. It’s not a vertical climb, right? That’s not how it works. We have the crabs in the bucket and they try to pull the people down. Or we talk about the corporate ladder. we don’t have the self value ladder.
The skinnier you are, the more valuable you are? Are you kidding? Look at Santa. He’s very valuable. That’s not how it works. Our society makes us feel that way a lot, but that’s not how it actually works. The whole process is just for fun, not to prove your worth.
Your worth as a person was already decided I would argue actually was decided before you were born because I believe that you were a spirit before you came here and you got a human body. And so when you believe this, whoever you believe about how you got here we’re just here to have more fun.
There’s no pressure. So whether you gained a pound or 20 or a hundred, your value has not changed. If you make more money. Your value has not changed. If you have more fabric, your value has not changed. If you have a certain marital status, your value has not changed. Okay. So important. All right, ladies, this was a long one, but it was a good one and I feel extremely passionate about helping women learn how to create their own before and after.
As you see in my podcast, now it’s called the quilters coach podcast. I don’t just coach you on weight loss. In fact, I’ve never just done that. The women who lose the most weight are the ones who dive deep into what’s the root of it all. This way I can help you and you know what you’re getting when you sign up.
You’re not just getting permanent weight loss, you’re getting relationship help. You’re getting overwhelmed. You’re getting productivity help. You’re getting how to build a quilting business. I am having specific modules and work for you to do on your own personal journey.
It’s like you’ve come to the train station and you have to decide, Where, what destination do I want to go to? Do I want to go to weight loss land right now, or do I want to go to fighting overwhelm right now, or improving my marriage right now? We just have to decide. All right. I love you all so much. I’m so glad you’re here on this podcast.
If this is really piquing your interest and you can relate to what I’m saying, I want to invite you into my membership and I want to invite you to share this with your friends and family. I would love for you to write a review. When you write a review, it helps my Podcasts get shown in front of so many more people.
There is a sea, a big open sea of lots and lots of podcasts. And so it’s not always so easy for people to find mine. And so if you can share it with others, I would just love that and appreciate it. I can’t wait to hear what the dreams are, what are your before and after and share those with me.
I’d love to hear them. All right. Take care, everyone. Bye bye.
If you want more help with learning about your body and how it’s changing through menopause, perimenopause, through whatever it is, my program is focused on helping you truly become your own best expert. July, we’re focusing on becoming our own bestie July and August actually with our summertime, um, challenge.
And then in August, we’re really diving into how to lose the physical weight when you focus so much on the mental. I have an incredible program for that coming in August. So there’s so much to look forward to. You truly can make your own transformation and I love helping you. Find that inner knowledge and wisdom.
That’s just waiting for you to unlock so that you can create permanent change for yourself.