Episode: # 17 From Small Wins to Big Victory: Becoming Your Own Cheerleader

This podcast episode elucidates the paramount significance of becoming one’s own cheerleader, an essential endeavor for personal growth and fulfillment. I delve into the importance of acknowledging and celebrating both small wins and significant victories on the journey toward achieving one’s aspirations. I candidly share my experiences and the challenges I have faced in recognizing my accomplishments, emphasizing that self-acknowledgment is crucial for fostering a positive mindset and motivation. Furthermore, I propose practical exercises, such as compiling a list of one hundred personal achievements, to reinforce the practice of self-celebration. Ultimately, the episode serves as a clarion call to prioritize self-love and to embrace the role of one’s own advocate in the pursuit of a dream life.

The episode presents a profound exploration of the significance of becoming one’s own advocate and the transformative power of recognizing personal achievements. Kara articulates the necessity of nurturing a supportive internal dialogue and emphasizes the importance of celebrating both minor and substantial victories within the context of one’s life’s journey. Through a series of reflective anecdotes, she highlights her own struggles with self-recognition, thereby establishing a relatable foundation for listeners who may share similar experiences.

The discussion navigates through the intricacies of self-perception and societal influences that contribute to the tendency to downplay personal achievements. Kara posits that in a culture often saturated with negativity, individuals may find it challenging to celebrate their successes due to a lingering sense of inadequacy. She introduces practical strategies to counteract this mindset, such as the aforementioned “100 wins” exercise, designed to facilitate a deeper appreciation for one’s accomplishments. This exercise serves not only as a motivational tool but also as a mechanism for fostering resilience and self-empowerment.

Ultimately, the episode encapsulates a vital message: the journey towards personal fulfillment is intrinsically linked to the practice of self-celebration and acknowledgment. Kara’s insights serve as a reminder that self-love and recognition are not merely self-indulgent pursuits but essential components of a healthy and productive life. By instilling these practices, individuals can foster a greater sense of joy and purpose, thereby enhancing their overall quality of life.

Takeaways:

• The journey towards personal development requires one to celebrate both small wins and significant achievements, acknowledging progress along the way.

• Being your own cheerleader is essential in the pursuit of a fulfilling life, as self-encouragement fosters resilience and motivation.

• Engaging in self-reflection and recognizing milestones can profoundly enhance one’s self-worth and overall happiness.

• Practicing self-love and positive affirmations can transform one’s internal dialogue, promoting a healthier relationship with oneself and fostering personal growth.

• The exercise of cataloging one hundred wins serves as a powerful reminder of one’s capabilities and achievements throughout life’s journey.

• It is imperative to prioritize self-care and affection, as neglecting oneself can hinder personal growth and the ability to support others effectively.

TRANSCRIPT:

Hey there, I'm Kara and welcome to Design your Dream Life podcast where we dive in and explore how you can use practical personal development to up level your life.

Whether you are looking to have better or deeper relationships, fix your problems with money, learn to love yourself unconditionally, leave a dead end or high stress career, or just want more happiness in your life, my friend, you are in the right place. Are you ready? Hello my friends and welcome to another episode of Design your dream life. My name is Kara. I am your host.

I am so excited that you're here today. Today I want to talk about you becoming your own cheerleader. I want to talk about small wins to big victories.

But more importantly, I feel like, and I am definitely guilty of this myself, of really crushing goals and not taking time to stop and celebrate the small wins along the way and just really reflecting how far I've really come. And I know a lot of my friends are, are very much the same way.

So today I want to talk to you about this because I want to encourage you to be your number one fan.

And I know that might sound cheesy or cliche, but I honestly believe that if you want to create your dream life and you want to do all of the things that there is nobody else that is going to root for you more than yourself and there shouldn't be. You know, I had a mentor of mine many years ago in a personal development seminar say to me this.

And it was so interesting because I was in my early 20s at the time and I remember thinking like, holy, Like, I don't know. Anyways, so what he said to us was, you need to be your own best friend. You need to have your own back.

And if you cannot spend at least an entire day with yourself, by yourself without distractions of TV or all the things he's like, then you are disconnected from you. And I just remember being like, I don't even remember the last time I spent a day by myself.

I mean, sure, I might spend a few hours here or a few hours there, but like a full intentional day. And I remember like, and at that time, this guy had a. I did a lot of his retreats, but he had this one retreat, that retreat that I hadn't done.

I think there was only like two. And he had like, I think seven retreats and there was two that I hadn't done.

And one of them was actually being out in the wilderness by yourself for a full weekend. And it scared me shitless. Like, I was just like, listen, I'm growing But I am, like, so not ready to go there yet.

But I will say I've done a lot of interesting experiences which I will share over, over time, because I do believe I've learned a lot of lessons from the personal growth that I have had some good, some bad. And I also want to firmly just remind you that there is no one that knows better than you do.

Like, I really want to affirm to you that you are your own guru and that you should, again, like, listen to people.

I listen to people to this day, but I know that I have to follow my own internal process for deciding what feels good for me, and I encourage you to do that as well. No matter who you're listening to, I always believe, take what feels good. Leave the rest.

And I think before that was one of my lessons, was that, you know, I would just, like, go all in on a person and listen to them 1,000% and, like, be like, okay, I'm all in. I'm all into this. And.

And just be like, oh, you know, it's because it's so easy to gaslight yourself into doing things that don't necessarily feel good for you. And so now, I think with wisdom and experience, I now have my own filter that I feel very confident, and I sit and we'll filter things through.

So whenever you're listening to me, anyone else, please do that.

Please know that you are your own guru, you know the best for your life, and in that, too, you should be your very own best friend and your own cheerleader. So that's what I want to talk about. Why do we struggle to celebrate ourselves? I don't know.

A lot of people can say a lot of different things, but it's just. I think it's so easy.

We're in a society, right, where it's, like, just on the news when there's, like, all the bad things people watch, but you put, like, good news on and people don't necessarily watch, which is, like, a very interesting and fascinating thing to observe. But I will tell you, like, even for me, like, me getting my first client and almost diminishing it, like, okay, yeah, I did it.

But you know all the things, right? Like, it's. It's like, oh, yes, we've got this. But it's like, oh, we don't want to pat ourselves too much on the back.

So I'm gonna think of a whole bunch of negative things to bring myself back down, right? And I will tell you, we did this. I've done this one exercise which is 100 wins. And I don't know if you've ever done it, you should do it.

But there's an exercise out there, and you're supposed to write down 100 wins, big and small. And. And you can go all the way back to, like, I learned to walk, I learned to talk, I learned to eat.

Like, you can literally go all the way back into there and think about in elementary school, did you win anything? Like, a lot of people don't even remember. It's like, oh, my gosh.

Oh, yeah, I won that, or I won this, or I was in this play, or I got this achievement. So you go back and you create this 100 wins inventory sheet.

And whenever you're feeling like you're not accomplished or you're not accomplishing things, you go back and you review that 100 wins and I will tell you, you remember how powerful you really, really are. And so I think it's super important to celebrate all the milestones. So even this, this is a new venture for me. I don't know if I.

I did tell you, but I don't know if you've listened to all the other podcasts. For all I know, this is the first time you've ever heard me. And if you have heard me tell this story, well, repetition is the second law of learning.

So hopefully it'll inspire you.

But I remember seeing on my own journey, on my first client, my consulting and marketing company, I wanted an aura ring, and I actually put it down as a $10,000 goal. I was gonna get this ring, and I totally forgot and I just kept going. See, I didn't even celebrate that first 10k month.

And by the time I revisited, it was actually my first 20k month. And that's when I decided to look or purchase. I'm just looking at my aura ring. Decided to buy my aura ring.

And every time I would look at it, I just remember how powerful I'm like, this came from my first 20k month that I ever did. And there's just something powerful about that for me. And so I had all these other different benchmarks for different income levels.

For me, that's how I kind of measured it.

And even here, for this new brand and this new thing, I definitely have income goals for it and other success metrics, and I tie it to something I like to smell like. I. I like to celebrate all the small wins. And so I will say this. I want to encourage you to do the same thing. And I.

I would encourage you to set a goal and then think about the Milestones. What are the milestones? To get to this goal and list all the small things and then decide what small things do you want to reward yourself?

And maybe it is just like, I'm going to go for a long hike in a park that I've never been to, that I really wanted to go to. It doesn't have to be these huge monetary things. Like, it can be like, I'm gonna have a whole day of Netflix, binge and a bubble bath.

Like, that is also allowed to celebrate your win. Like, it doesn't have to be money. And it can be big, it can be small, it can be all the things in between.

But I think that when you take the time to identify what those small wins are and you take the time to celebrate them, it's just a nicer journey. It is. It's also training yourself to look for the good along the way.

I think sometimes it's so easy for us to me especially to put my head down and work and work. And then the next time I pop up my head, I haven't really. I haven't really acknowledged and celebrated all the work that I just did.

And it's a big deal. You are a big deal. When you're going for your dreams and for your goals, it's a big deal to even just go after them.

So I want you to find the joy along the way. Find the little things that are your little milestones to success no matter where you are. Right?

So, example, even when I was rebuilding after my corporate burnout, right? I, like, honestly, I will tell you, like, I created daily affirmations that I created for myself.

And I will say, I feel like even with affirmations, oh, there's something really good about them. But affirmations are also like the gym for me. I will tell you this.

Like, I'm so good for a while, and then I break a habit and then I fall off, and then I come back and then it feels good, and then something. Something happens to disrupt the pattern, and then I fall off.

And so I encourage you to write some affirmations for yourself that you would love to read in the morning. That that did actually used to be part of my morning routine. Am I actually glad I'm talking about this right now?

Because I really should get back into it because I know how powerful it can be to write those intentions and affirmations. I think I had maybe a list about 10. I should go revisit them. They're in my nightstand and update them and start doing that in the morning.

And really, oh, man, they're just so great. And I do them for everything in my life. I do it not only for my business. I do it for my marriage. I do it for my children. Yeah. I have this list of 10.

And I will tell you that I. I know when I focus in the morning and just having that good energy flow out of me while I'm reading and I'm setting my intentions, and it.

It does create really good energy to start your day in. I will. I will tell you that. And so if you haven't done any affirmations, I. I invite you to explore doing affirmations.

The other thing that I really wanted to briefly touch upon, too, is just talking positively to yourself. I feel like maybe you are like me, maybe you're not. I feel like a lot of us struggle with ourselves, and we talk to ourselves so horribly.

Like, we're so short with ourselves, we get frustrated with ourselves. We say things to ourselves that we would never say to our friends, and yet we are supposed to be our own best friend.

And sometimes it's like I have to remind myself, too. It's like, hey, remember, you love yourself. And how about we talk to ourselves a little kinder?

Like, because we can easily beat ourselves up so easily, right? It's like.

It's so crazy because if you think about it, it's like we can do something and then we not celebrate it, and then we do something like, tiny, remotely tiny. That's bad. And we're like. Like, totally should be the flip flop, right? It should totally be the flip flop. It.

It should be like, if we do something bad, we should be light and graceful and give ourselves forgiveness and grace and all of those things. If we do something bad and if we do something good, we should celebrate and be loud in our own heads and in. In our surroundings and what we do.

And so I want to encourage you to celebrate you more. I feel like that is something that will be powerful if you let that into your life. And I know that it's a habit. It's definitely a habit.

And it's one that you can build.

And I think that if you start building that habit of celebrating yourself more and becoming your own cheerleader more, it is going to not only bring more joy in your life, it'll actually create more happiness, not only for you, but also the people around you. You know, there are people. I don't know how many times I have been told when I'm talking to somebody walking, they're like, gosh, Kara, you. I just.

I Love your energy. I love your passion. I love the way your light. Your eyes light up in a room. Like you. Just you. And I'm like, yeah, thank you. That is such a compliment.

Before, I would never be able to receive that compliment, but I receive that. And at the same time, I have worked really hard to get here. I honestly have. And I think that you can, too. Well, I don't think. I know you can too.

I mean, again, I used to be a screamer and I barely. You know, of course I'm not perfect. Sometimes I will lose my crap and I might raise my voice, but, like, I used to be a yeller and I'm not like, I.

Like there are all of these things that I have picked and decided that I want to be better, I want to transform, I want to do these things, and I want to make myself better. And I think that you can do that in any area of your life.

So with that, my friends, we're going to keep this episode a little bit shorter because I feel like the last two, I kind of went overboard. But I will say this. It might be a little outside your comfort zone to love on you, to love on yourself, but, man, do you ever deserve it.

Like, you deserve to love on yourself. And I would love to challenge you to that this week.

Sure, you know, it's great to do the hundred wins exercise, but I think if you're also in a place where you are being really hard with yourself, you might also want to decide to write yourself a love letter. And I know that that might sound a little bit crazy. And I have done this.

And because I'm so hard on myself, that was an exercise that I did and thanking me, thanking my old self, thanking my future self and my present self and really reconnecting with myself and committing to myself that I'm going to love myself more, I'm going to show up for Kara more in every way, and I'm not going to show up for all the other people and then ignore me. That really doesn't make any sense, does it?

When we say it out loud, when we think about it, it's like, oh, we show up for all of these other people in our life and then we neglect ourselves. So it is time, my friends, to stop neglecting you. Start loving yourself more deeply and becoming your own number one fan and cheerleader.

With that, I hope you have an amazing rest of your week. I hope you decide to do some of these exercises. If not, just give yourself a little more love. I'll talk to you next week.