The Confident Podcast

Ep 169 | Ask Lisa: Answering Your Pressing Questions for Personal and Professional Growth

• The Confident Podcast • Episode 169

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This week we’re mixing things up! Kelsey Snyder is taking over as host to ask Lisa all of your most pressing questions on topics ranging from personal growth, professional development, and team dynamics at work and home. 

Have questions about how to improve your personal and professional life? Tune in now and get all of your questions answered!

Chapters:

  • 0:00 - Intro & Special Host Kelsey Snyder
  • 5:35 - The Importance of Self-Awareness
  • 10:56 - How to Stop Planning and Take Action
  • 18:40 - Overcoming Limiting Beliefs and Negative Mindset
  • 30:1 - Key Takeaways & Outro


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Lisa Tarkington:

If there is one skill that I want everybody to work on, it is having self-awareness, because it helps you with your leadership, it helps you with your confidence and it helps you with your well-being and it just helps you overall with life, and so if that is a skill I want everybody to know, if you can dive into that, it makes all the other skills kind of boom. Welcome to the Confident Podcast. I am Lisa Targinton, your host of this podcast. If you found yourself hitting play on this podcast, it means it was meant for you. My goal is to help empower and guide you to become a better version of yourself through conversation, advice and tips that are real, vulnerable and authentic. I am excited to have you join this journey with me. So let's get started.

Lisa Tarkington:

Hi everybody, welcome back for another episode of the Confident Podcast. I am usually your host, lisa Tarkington, but today we are going to have kind of a little twist to the Confident Podcast, where we are going to be bringing on Kelsey Schneider, who was on one of our former episodes I believe it was 163. 163. And it's all about how to embrace career setbacks, and so it's definitely one that you want to listen to, but why I'm having Kelsey be our person to interview me today is is that we've heard a lot from you guys of different questions that you want to hear, have answers from the podcast, and so we figured why not do an Ask Lisa session where Kelsey asked me a ton of different questions to kind of set the tone of all the things that you guys have been wondering around maybe personal or professional growth. And so, kelsey, I will let you take it away, sounds good.

Kelsey Snyder:

Thanks for having me back. The tables have turned.

Lisa Tarkington:

I know it feels weird, yes.

Kelsey Snyder:

So we're going to kind of break this into three sections. So we'll have personal development questions, professional development questions and then a question for me, because I'm a little nosy about people's routines. So to kick us off, we'll start with the personal development. So one of the themes that came up was comparison and jealousy. We had a question come in about how do I deal with this. I'd love to hear kind of your experience, like, of course you've dealt with it, everyone deals with it, and so you know when that's happened to you. Maybe you want to tell us a story about it. And then, how can we effectively manage these emotions to avoid falling into some of that victim mindset trap?

Lisa Tarkington:

Okay, so biggest thing that I will say is everybody, take a deep breath, because we all go through comparison and jealousy. So if you are tuning in or just between even us, it's like we all are going to have these moments in our lives, right, it's just kind of like the growth of a person. But one of the things that I really struggled with and I'll say in my 20s was because I wasn't secure in myself. I had a lot of jealousy. I did a lot of comparison. It's like why don't I look that way? Why don't I have those types of friends? Why don't I have X or Y or Z, Whatever you want to think of?

Lisa Tarkington:

I did a lot of that victim mindset thought process and still I started to go inward. Now does it still show up? Absolutely, Like it's still very much there, but now I have the tools that I put in place to really help me with that. I also had to start to realize like, well, who am I hanging out with? Who am I spending time with? Who? Like why am I getting jealous? Am I just insecure? And so I had to just kind of go on this like inward journey, which you guys all know I'm very much about, and I think the other thing is is now what I've noticed is because I've done that work, I am a way more positive person.

Lisa Tarkington:

I've probably said on this podcast multiple times if you would have met me 10 years ago, I was a very negative person right, Like I did the jealousy and I didn't empower people like I should have and all those things. And now it's switched for me because I've done the work myself, I love myself, I don't need as much external validation as I did in the past. I think also what I've noticed about myself now is it's not jealousy. If I'm envious of what someone else is doing, I'm like, oh, how do I get that? Because I want that too. There's a difference, right. Jealousy is usually because I was insecure. Envy is really like I'm very jealous that maybe they're getting like more keynotes than me or something like that. How do I then perform or work on myself to get to that level? Because obviously I want to obtain the goal that they've reached. So I've kind of been able to kind of see it now and a different lenses.

Kelsey Snyder:

Well, and you're kind of talking about it being a signal to you, right? So sometimes it's hard. You say what do you want? And you're like where do I start? But also I don't have any answer to this question, and so you brought up a really good point. It can be that signal that, oh, I should click into this a little bit deeper.

Lisa Tarkington:

Yes, and I think, too, it's helped me realize like that's not jealousy, right, jealousy is when I'm like in a negative state Envy, it's like I admire you, I just adore you. How do I learn these skills to do some of the things that you're doing? Like still being true to myself, but like then I get to set high goals for myself and that's really changed my mindset of how I look at things. I like that a lot.

Kelsey Snyder:

A piece of that is self-awareness that you mentioned. And so that kind of takes us right into the next piece. I know you've done a lot of teaching about self-awareness. It comes up a lot when you're talking with leaders, especially. So, what excites you about this topic and why do you think this is such a cornerstone for professional and personal growth?

Lisa Tarkington:

Yeah so I think probably in the last year I have said the word self-awareness more than I have in my entire life.

Lisa Tarkington:

More think. Probably in the last year I have said the word self-awareness more than I have in my entire life, more than confidence. That's a valid point, I don't really know. Well, that's actually a very good point. I think it goes hand in hand really, and I think for me, like the reason why self-awareness excites me, is because when you can be aware of your own emotions, when you can be aware of other people's emotions, it helps you make decisions. It helps you really check in with yourself and notice, like, okay, am I getting triggered? Oh, wow, this is making me happy. Do I do this more? It also helps you realize, like, okay, this person, when they heard me say this, their eyes flinched a certain way or they felt a certain thing. Like me say this, their eyes flinched a certain way or they felt a certain thing Like how do I then ask more questions or how do I read that to know how to make decisions in the moment.

Lisa Tarkington:

The other thing self-awareness does is I know everybody, I've done this episode around feedback but, like, feedback is a hard thing for people and I think that what I've learned with self-awareness is the more that I ask for it, the more I've grown. Now, do I always love the feedback that I ask for it. The more I've grown Now, do I always love the feedback that I get? No, but like, I've learned a lot through that process. And one of the other pieces is, as I work with leaders from teenage leaders to mid-level to executive and everybody struggles with this. So when I see someone who's like I'm like, wow, you have really good self-awareness, I can already tell that they're going to grow pretty quickly, because that is a skill a lot of people miss.

Lisa Tarkington:

A lot of people have people around them that might just be saying yes or whatever you want, and then they don't have to learn those self-awareness skills Actually hurts them long term. So the more that you can focus on those things and I'll tell you, I was really bad at this for a long time and I thought I was good at it, but I think over the years I've gotten better at reading and then making decisions. Before maybe I've saw it on someone's face or felt a certain thing and I would be like well, I'll deal with that later, right, and now it's like OK, you're giving that face Like. I can remember even us we had conversations where you'll give me the face of like okay, where's she going with?

Kelsey Snyder:

this right.

Lisa Tarkington:

It's like totally, totally true. And I'm like, okay, let me take a step back. Or I could have. In the past I might have been like you got it, you good, Okay, bye. And now I'm like, okay, let's have a conversation. And so I think a lot of people, the more that you can add those little things into your life, Sure, you know it's, you can't just move as quickly, but it's a big change in your life.

Kelsey Snyder:

Yeah, I think you're talking a lot about curiosity, right, and not assuming what you, whatever blank you filled in for them.

Lisa Tarkington:

Right.

Kelsey Snyder:

And that takes that confidence piece that you talked about Totally.

Lisa Tarkington:

And just like honestly caring to be honest with you, it's self-awareness is caring for yourself and caring for others. You know, having more self-awareness has also helped me decide on who I want to spend my time with. You know, if I'm looking at a phone and someone's calling me and I'm already like I don't want to answer, well, that's a pretty good red flag, that like I didn't want to talk to them. Now, when I'm tired, it's a little bit different, but like I think that those moments when you can listen to yourself and your body and then do something about it, that's the other thing that I you know, we had Mimi on a couple of episodes ago and I talked to her about that. It's like you can hear all these things, but then doing the action is the next level, yeah, so kind of taking it to that next step with someone.

Kelsey Snyder:

How do you help someone?

Lisa Tarkington:

do that.

Kelsey Snyder:

Right, I know we're talking from a personal development, but we have parents or people that have, you know, big teams or things like that, where they're trying to help hone in on that Totally.

Lisa Tarkington:

So I would say the biggest thing is is it's going to sound cliche, but it's really journaling, and this is something that we teach in a lot of our programs and our membership platform, where it's literally journal prompts. It's putting down questions of how do I feel today, did I receive feedback and how did I handle it? Did like, when someone had an emotion towards me, how did I react? And I think that that's the biggest step of just actually like sitting down for five minutes a day and reevaluating how your awareness was for the day. Right. But I'll take even a step back of like if someone wants to provide feedback to someone, it's actually showcasing it yourself first.

Lisa Tarkington:

I think that it's very easy to tell someone what to do, but I would really reality check for people and say are you doing those things? Because I see a lot of leaders or people want to provide the feedback but then they're not doing it themselves, right, and so you can't ask someone to be self-aware in your family or anything if you're not even doing the tool. So it's really about like taking that and walking the walk. I like that.

Kelsey Snyder:

That makes sense, yeah. So, speaking of walking the walk, we have a kind of planning stage question versus a taking action question. So many of us find ourselves stuck in that rut of like planning, I love to put together the most fantastic workout plan for the whole month and then I got to actually do it. So can you kind of talk to us when you get stuck in that planning versus taking action when you've done enough planning, kind of how do you bridge that gap between thinking about something and execution?

Lisa Tarkington:

I'm just going to start because I'm smiling, because I'm laughing, because literally two weeks ago, my husband sent me an emoji text that said just do it. And I was, because I was. You know, I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that and here's my big plan. And he's like OK, then just go do it. Like, and I think that that's like a common thing that I hear. I'm still working on that myself.

Lisa Tarkington:

But I think it's kind of stepping back and being like to your point of a workout plan. How many of us have done this beautiful workout plan? I'm going to work out twice a day this, you know, like all of these things, beautiful plan. And then there's no execution. Because we spent so much time in the planning stage, because we were scared of what the action might be. So I've been there, right when the planning stage is very comfortable.

Lisa Tarkington:

It's like, okay, I can get from A to Z for the planning of what I want to do, but the action is so scary, or just you get into your mind a little bit that you're just like okay, I did that. Now this is hard right. And so I'm going to go to what we've heard a lot of people probably say in our lifetime is like choose your hard or get comfortable with the uncomfortable. So if you notice yourself continuously planning and planning and planning, I want you to check in with that self-awareness of like okay, but like, this is a beautiful plan, why don't I just try it? Right?

Lisa Tarkington:

I think so many people, including myself, were scared of failure for a long time that we would talk a really big game, but there was no execution in there. You know, and I still have my moments with certain things but I think once you do it the one, the one time it gets a lot easier after that because you're like, oh, I'm seeing results, or, oh, this didn't work, let me go back and change some things. And so what I would say to anybody who loves to plan including myself or anybody- yeah, right is.

Lisa Tarkington:

Is use what Nike slogan is of just do it Right Like that. That slogan is a reason, is there for a reason of like great that you've planned it. You have to plan to a certain extent, but then at that point you have to do it, and then you know, a word that I always used in the corporate world was be agile, right Like, try to try it for a little bit and then go back and try something else. If it's not working, right Like, it doesn't mean that you failed, that doesn't mean you go back from zero with the plan. It just means maybe you need to change the action or the execution, and so that is like anybody thinking about, like starting a career or entrepreneurship or, you know, starting a workout plan. Like just go do it and then, like, you can also plan in the the meantime too. Yeah, that's what I would say.

Lisa Tarkington:

I like that a lot. I'm going to take my own advice today, that's for sure.

Kelsey Snyder:

I can feel that for sure. The professional development side, if we go into section number two. So there's a couple of things that have come up and we had a really great workshop where we brought a bunch of young professionals together and one thing that came up again and again was imposter syndrome. And I think this can happen when you're young in your career, it can happen when you change careers.

Kelsey Snyder:

We've talked about this, like there's a lot of different places that this comes into play. So when we recognize that we're feeling these feelings of inadequacy or you might have a little bit of that comparison game, that self-doubt what do you do when you notice that and how do you combat that?

Lisa Tarkington:

Yeah, so you're right. This is something that I literally hear on a daily basis from individuals of. I have imposter syndrome, and I'll share a story of a recent woman that I've been following online, where she applied for a new job. She was always in finance and she just recently took a chief financial officer role, so a CFO role. She immediately when she got the job, all of that imposter syndrome creeped in, and the reason it creeped in for her was because she's like am I qualified? Am I all of these things? Ok, I'm getting questions from now, my, my leader, as well as my board of is she qualified right? Is she going to follow through? And it was such an intriguing moment because it reminded me that, like I mean, this woman is 20 years older than me, right, and she's still struggling with that. So, no matter what, we're all going to have our moments. But what she said in there really resonated with me of, well, I've done the work right. Like I didn't. No one just gave me the job because I didn't do the qualifications up to it right and it was time for me to take that big leap and I had to get uncomfortable. The other part she said as well, which I thought was fascinating was, when you take roles like that, you're also going to be surrounded by other individuals who know their stuff right, and so it's like you don't need to know it all. You need to know your role. But then how do you lean on other people to support you along the way? You know, when I started my career from going from the corporate world to run a nonprofit, I laugh because now, looking back, I'm like what was I thinking Right? But that imposter syndrome creeped in hardcore of. I was surrounded by these people that were doing this for 10, 20, 30 years, and there's little old me. What do I? What business do I have doing it? But what I did in that moment was then find my allies, have my support system and put my head down and get to work Right.

Lisa Tarkington:

I think it's very easy to get caught up in the stories that we tell ourselves. It's very easy to say like I'm not good enough. Oh, they're going to find out that I'm a fraud. No, honey, you're not a fraud, right. Like you wouldn't applied for this if you didn't, if you didn't have the capability, no one would have given you the job if you weren't capable of it. So if other people are believing in you weren't capable of it.

Lisa Tarkington:

So if other people are believing in you, it's time for you to believe in yourself, and it's just really about self-talk. I can't stress that enough. You have to talk positive about yourself. And then you need to be around people that also believe in you too, because, guess what? You're going to have the phone calls. I'm not, I'm feeling this way, and then you need that talk through of okay, what have you accomplished in the last five years of your job? And you need those reminders. Sometimes You're not actually asking for external validation in that moment. You're asking someone to phone. You're basically phoning a friend right in that moment so that you can realize it yourself. So that's what I would say is you are qualified, but you got to believe that you are.

Kelsey Snyder:

Yeah, I like that. You also made me think of who you surround yourself, not just to be able to phone that friend, but how they talk about themselves and their abilities.

Lisa Tarkington:

Right, Because you hear that and it's so easy to go down that rabbit hole yourself, exactly, and I think that that's the other piece about like you can't give advice to people if you're not going to do it yourself, right, like I mean, I think about all the time like we can talk parenting, right, we have to be the models of it. When I think about like me as a leader, if I'm not having positive self-talk, I can't expect that of my team, right? So it's very much like that ripple effect of change we want to have on people.

Kelsey Snyder:

Definitely so. This one kind of goes into the limiting beliefs side of the house, so we've kind of touched on it in a couple of different ways, but it can hold us back in our careers. That imposter syndrome, like we talked about. It kind of goes hand in hand with the limiting beliefs. So, in addition to some of the self-talk and some of those pieces, any other strategies that you can use to identify and kind of challenge those limiting beliefs.

Lisa Tarkington:

Yeah. So I would say the biggest thing is, first off, recognizing what is the limiting belief and being very, very clear on it. So if you're telling yourself I'm not being fearless enough, okay, that's a very broad thing to say. Where in your life are you not being that way? Where do you want to grow in the area?

Lisa Tarkington:

because I bet there's other areas of your life where you're really good at it and so sometimes what we have to do is like kind of like, take like that view out, that focus out and say, okay, I'm feeling this certain way, but like, what aspect of my life am I feeling it? Because then you can say okay, where am I good at it? And then focus on like how did I get good over there Now, how do I add it to the other spot of my life? And again, that's not for everything, but I would start there of like zooming out and then, which is not a word, that I say a lot Kelsey will know I don't say slow down a lot and I would say you need to slow down and you need to reflect a little bit on like man, this continuously is coming up, what am I doing to stop from meeting those goals? And so I'm going to share two different things that come up when you ask me about limiting beliefs.

Lisa Tarkington:

The first one is recently we were doing this whole activity around limiting beliefs, which also our membership platform has, and we just talked to a few people that have been doing it on our platform of their success. But this was an in-person program that we were doing and we had people write down their goals and then we said, okay, what are the hindering factors stopping you from achieving those goals? So they wrote those down. And then the question was is okay, how are you going to overcome those hindering factors to meet those goals, like you've already met the goal? So visualize it how did you overcome that hindering factor?

Lisa Tarkington:

And in that class I had this, this individual who did not believe that he would ever graduate from college, and it was because of money, and so what he was doing was putting this limiting belief on him without realizing all the resources around him. And so myself and an advisor sat him down and had this conversation of well, here's all of these different resources. Like these are thoughts you're telling yourself, but you haven't done the research to find out how actually we can make this happen for you, true or not?

Lisa Tarkington:

Yeah, true, exactly True, or false. And his eyes got so big and he got such a smile on his face and he was like so I can actually do this. And what we noticed in that moment was he was putting this limiting thought on himself and he completely was shutting down that his eyes couldn't open up to all the other opportunities that could help him achieve that. And so I think what happens when we have this limiting belief, I would kind of say like it's kind of like a black hole where, like there's no light around it, you're just kind of like tunnel vision into it. You're not seeing different perspectives, you're not opening up to different things, you're not seeing different perspectives, you're not opening up to different things. And so when we did that activity and that would be my second thing I would say is like writing down what are the possibilities to overcome those hindering factors.

Lisa Tarkington:

And if you are in that laser focus, I'm going to say phone a friend again, right, because I think sometimes, like I even do that, I'm like I have this thought I know there's a better way. You do that really well, it's like I know that there's a better way, right. And so then you have that conversation and it helps you get out of that mindset to really achieve your goals. And it's so intriguing when people like talk about their limiting beliefs. Yeah, it's usually sometimes money, sometimes it's time Also, it's also themselves. What's stopping them is usually themselves. It's time and money. Those are the two biggest ones I hear. So then it's opening up that conversation of okay, how are we going to overcome those things so that we can achieve those goals?

Kelsey Snyder:

Yeah, it's kind of putting the problem in front of you and thinking of it a little bit differently.

Lisa Tarkington:

Yes, yeah, because I think when you're staring at this problem for so long, your brains can't think of any other way, so it's just kind of like kind of lasering out. The other thing, too, is that I will share with limiting beliefs is when you start to go down that rabbit hole, you're going to find a lot of limiting beliefs, right and so attract more.

Lisa Tarkington:

Yes, you're going to attract more and it's going to just seem daunting. So I always tell people like when you start to notice that you're starting to get really negative, you've got to start to have that self-awareness to make that flip. Because if you don't, I will tell you personally. It took me years to get out of that hole and I don't want that for anybody like to get to that point, because it is very dark, it's very lonely and it's very like there. You don't see the end in sight and I never want anybody to get to that point and that's why I'm so big on these tools.

Lisa Tarkington:

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Lisa Tarkington:

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Lisa Tarkington:

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Kelsey Snyder:

What about negative mindset? So when we're looking at in a professional setting, how do we switch from kind of that victim mindset of like these things A lot of things are out of your control? That could be very true. But also, how do we switch out of that negative mindset or these things that are happening to me and instead into more of that empowered? Maybe you're not ready to go as far as saying these are happening for me quite yet, but that you're trying to address it.

Lisa Tarkington:

Yeah, so I'm gonna take us all back to how many times in my life that I said God, why me right? Or said to my family this isn't fair, I'm trying so hard and all of these things. And I got in such a victim mindset and this was really in my 20s Like I remember leaving work and calling my dad and looking back. I'm just going to be completely honest. The victim mindset came from entitlement, feeling entitled, that like I deserve things because I did nothing. If I'm being honest, like, I'm just going to go to my 20s here for a second and bless these parents that have listened to us on those phone calls home from work.

Lisa Tarkington:

Yes, yes, and so every parent out there like welcome.

Kelsey Snyder:

Like this is and my parents.

Lisa Tarkington:

Thank you, like. But I will say like that my dad listened but like he also really helped me like, and my mom did too, but like I'm using this example where it's like he really had to help me see what I was doing and how I was the problem. Now I'm not saying that this is always the case, but I will say my victim mindset started because I was blaming everybody else but myself. I wouldn't take ownership for what part I had in it, and so that negative mindset became back to that comparison, that jealousy, all of those things, because I didn't have the self-awareness to have that reality check of, like girl, you're a piece of the pie, you're not the whole pie, right, and so that was a really big moment over the years. And what really triggered me to make those changes was what I said earlier, where I went to rock bottom and I never want that for someone. And so that positive mindset is noticing like having that self-awareness of these things keep happening. Are they happening because I need to learn a lesson, right? Sometimes, like things keep happening because we hadn't learned the lesson. Sometimes they keep happening because you've evolved and now you have the skills to handle it differently. But you have to choose to do that and so, and then it's just like continuously asking yourself okay, how do I be part of this solution? Right, versus playing like, well, let's, let's play the blame game. That's like the hardest piece, and I bet we all know someone who's done that, cause I know for me I've I've done that a few different times.

Lisa Tarkington:

So switching to that positive mindset is having that recognition of, okay, I want to be part of this solution. How do I then empower myself to get out of this hole? I'm like picturing someone like digging a hole and kind of like shoveling themselves out of it. It's like, step by step, everyday choosing how am I going to show up to be the best person that I can be Back to.

Lisa Tarkington:

Like what you said about that empowering piece too, I'm in, I'm in charge, right, and so I get to choose if I'm going to live this life empowered or if I'm going to keep falling back to the victim mindset. And that's a choice, right, we can tell people all day to do it, but, like, at the end of the day, we have to wake up and choose that. So I think, kind of going back to the professional aspect is it's very easy to compare. It's very easy to play all of these like mind games with ourselves, but really at the end of the day it's checking in with ourselves to kind of like a gut check of did I do the work that was asked, like all of these different pieces, to really make sure that I'm going to the next level.

Kelsey Snyder:

You're talking a lot about owning it too, and there's that piece of maybe gets combined with the fear of failure. Right, and so then you kind of say like, oh, why does this keep happening? But really like you don't want to put yourself out there too much in order to make it happen. There's like that dance that you're talking about.

Lisa Tarkington:

Yeah, and I'll go off of that for a second. I think the hardest work to do is the inner work, because it brings up all the things where it's so easy to give someone else advice on, but, like when you have to do it, you're like, oh man, this is tough. But I tell anybody, the minute you start to do it it gets easier. It also with self-awareness. It makes you have a lot more awareness of the areas that you need to grow. But I've been able to make a lot of adjustments quicker than what I would have in the past. I would say that makes sense.

Kelsey Snyder:

So can you share us a story share?

Lisa Tarkington:

with us a story You've talked about, kind of the negative mindset side of it.

Kelsey Snyder:

But when you've made that change, what did it do for your career? Or were there moments where, like you know, you did that hard work and then you saw the rewards?

Lisa Tarkington:

Can you take us there? Yeah, I think it's funny because what I've noticed first is everybody else notices it before you do right, like everybody notices.

Lisa Tarkington:

Yeah, like everybody will be like, oh my gosh, you kind of like you're evolving into what you're doing, lisa, like let's hang out, or you just seem differently, or you seem happier and I'm over here being like, ok, I've been doing these things, but because it wasn't an instant gratification moment, I was still doing it, falling back sometimes, but still doing it. So everybody else noticed it before I did. I'll be honest, like I think that that was the biggest case I noticed. And then the other thing is is one of the things that me and my husband do a lot is we ask ourselves are we happy? And I think that that's something that's really stuck with me over the years is like making sure that I'm like switching to that positive mindset, because I wanted my, my core values freedom. I really want to be happy. And if I'm allowing myself in that victim mindset, it's like that's not allowing me the freedom or the happiness that I want in my life.

Lisa Tarkington:

And so, with all of that kind of that switch piece, it started with positive self-talk, like, cliche as that is, I swear to God that's huge Right. And there's an app called I am. I highly recommend it. If you're struggling right now, it prompts right onto your phone. I also recommend checking out the lead within membership platform, because there is a ton of tools on there to help you as well, because tools are what sets you up for success.

Lisa Tarkington:

I truly, truly believe that, and so does discipline, and so when I was switching over, I had to be very conscious of my word choices. I had to be very conscious of okay, I thought, a negative thought what is the positive, and I'd have to say it out loud to myself. So I will say that this was not work overnight, especially as I had a lot of ups and flows with my career. Things didn't always go right. I got a lot of ups and flows with my career. All right, like, things didn't always go right. I got a lot of rejections my first couple of years running a nonprofit, and so I think for me, having to like be OK with who I was and being proud of that was a big game changer for that negative or that negative versus positive self-talk.

Kelsey Snyder:

Yeah, I love that there's so much work that goes into it that suddenly somebody goes oh that's different right.

Lisa Tarkington:

And you're like oh, it is different.

Kelsey Snyder:

And suddenly you know you reflect, you slow down to your point and you think about you. Know how far you've come.

Lisa Tarkington:

Yeah, and like it's the little things. Right, it's not allowing other people around me to even have positive or negative talk.

Kelsey Snyder:

Right, it's catching them, and when you catch them you're like oh yeah, that's my reminder.

Lisa Tarkington:

I got to catch myself right Like it's that continuous piece yeah.

Kelsey Snyder:

So my turn for a question. I love hearing about people's routines and all the pieces that you've talked about. That's reflection, it's the self-talk, it's doing the work yourself before you can help and impact others with it. How do you fit that into your routine, whether it's daily, weekly, monthly, I don't know. Take us there with, like, what are some of the practices, tools that you've kind of woven to this to make it a habit.

Lisa Tarkington:

Yeah, absolutely so I would say. First and foremost, I've shared multiple times on this podcast. My word of the year is discipline, and this is an area of my life where I have chosen to be really disciplined on, because I believe that personal and professional development has to come with setting the boundaries for yourself and being disciplined in trying to grow. So if you ask my husband, he probably thinks I want to grow way too much.

Lisa Tarkington:

All the time, because I'm always like oh yeah, I'm going to take this course, I'm going to do this, but I think one thing that I've noticed is I don't ever want to stop learning these skills. So when you think of routine, I would say I always want to be spontaneous. But honestly, let's be honest a routine is my jam.

Lisa Tarkington:

And so every morning I start out with the same routine. You know, maybe it's having the same drink every morning, but I'm making sure that I'm playing music that's pumping me up, starting right away with positive thoughts. I'm trying not to scroll as much because there's the negative right there, but it's like how do you add little things into your life throughout the day? And then also I'm going to go back to self-awareness. I've had to see a lot of self-awareness on where do I need to grow and where do I want to grow, and then going to seek what I need to grow in. So, for example, limiting beliefs we've just talked about that. It's like seeking okay, how do I overcome that? But then actually adding it into your life, so, for example, every week or every month I would say every month is like a new goal for me of one thing that I want to learn.

Lisa Tarkington:

And I always start the year off. I know some people love a new year's resolution, some don't. I love them. It's kind of just like my refresh start, and so in the beginning of the year I set out what I want to achieve. Now does it change by July? Sometimes Right, but I've already been able to take a course or two of what I wanted to grow in, and then it's the continuation of what I want to grow in. So, for example, two years ago I wanted to be certified in coaching. Instead of talking about it with my husband, I went and found the scholarship and I went through the program right. I had the discipline, knowing for the next six Saturdays I was going to have to give it up, and so kind of routine for me is looking at and projecting like I want to grow in this skill. What's it going to take, what's the sacrifices I'm going to have to make?

Kelsey Snyder:

That's a big piece. That's the hardest Acknowledging that.

Lisa Tarkington:

Yes, right, and then having a conversation. So when I was single, I didn't really have to go over it with someone. When I got married, or even when me and my husband were dating, I had a conversation with him of this is how much it's going to cost me and this is how much time it's going to take away from us. Is this a family decision that we're okay with? And I have a very supportive husband.

Lisa Tarkington:

So it was like, yes, do these things now right Like because they're in your head or I'm going to keep talking about it, and I think that that's the other thing. Back to planning versus action is I have these things in my routine because I just don't want to keep talking about getting out of my limiting beliefs or what that's going to look like for my future. I want to do it now, and so that's been a big change for me and that's why I think now it's just kind of embedded into my life and I'm not going to say every month is perfect. When I have my moment of like you know what, work's just been busy, life has just been busy. I'm just going to read a book this month, like that's okay, guys, like it doesn't have to be humongous, like taking a whole coaching course, it can be. I want to grow in this skill. I'm going to read this book for four months, right, and I think that we put this so much pressure on ourselves.

Lisa Tarkington:

But life ups and flows. Like I don't have children right now, you know. So I know when I have children I'm going to have to figure out a different type of sacrifice to keep this stuff going. I'm going to have to maybe stretch the goal out six months versus doing it in three months, right. And so it's not about giving it up. It's about setting like expectations with yourself and understanding with life that's going to happen.

Lisa Tarkington:

Now I am a recovering perfectionist and so like for me that was really hard in the beginning, but I think it's when you have support in place, when you have what you want to go after, and then you do something about it, it be kind of just becomes part of your life. You know, we teach a lot about habits at lead and one of the things I'm really big on is once you start a habit, it just kind of becomes part of your natural life. And then you have self-awareness of I was really happy six months ago. What was I doing? You're like, oh, I was reading these books and doing this. That needs to come back in. And then making sure that you do it right away, versus keep talking about it.

Kelsey Snyder:

Yeah, I think that course correcting, because stuff always happens right and so it throws you off your game and to your point. You all a good job of that and the sacrifices back to that.

Lisa Tarkington:

I think that that's like the hardest piece. And I remember I will never forget this advice when I was building my nonprofit this was even before we were a nonprofit and one of my friends, like everybody, was going to the bars, you know, on Saturdays. We were in our 20s and I was working and to build this, and I had a friend say to me I promise you you will not regret this. Like you, what you're trying to do is to better yourself and I don't regret it. Right, like I still like made sure that I like had my priority straight, still had fun, didn't lose my friends and things like that. But at the same time, like me doing my coaching classes, where it was for six Saturdays, like looking back, I'm like I am so grateful now because it's like I have that knowledge now. But and it just gets harder as we don't do it it gets harder to say like I wish I would have. I wish I would have, absolutely.

Kelsey Snyder:

So what are three things based on today that you want to leave the audience with?

Lisa Tarkington:

OK. So the first one is I'm going to go back to the word self-awareness. So I'm going to say if there is one skill that I want everybody to work on, it is having self-awareness, because it helps you with your leadership, it helps you with your confidence and it helps you with your well-being and it just helps you overall with life. And so if that is like that is a skill I want everybody to know, like if you can dive into that, it makes all the other skills kind of bloom. I think the other one is is never stop learning, and so I think I actually wrote it down because I wanted to make sure that I this is one thing that I like wanted to leave you guys with is continuous learners are 35% more likely to experience high levels of life satisfaction and overall well-being, and so that resonates so much with me because it reminds me that, like I want to be my best, and so continuous learning, like don't give up on your learning, because that is going to be a game changer in your life.

Lisa Tarkington:

So get a coach. I have a coach. I've had a coach for three years. I've actually had multiple different coaches to help me get a mentor, have the right support system. And then if you are like looking to grow in a skill or even just like grow as a person with confidence or anything like, do it, just go and do it Like. Those are the two that I would say, and then I think that kind of goes into my third one, which is, guys, just do it right, like stop waiting by Nike, although we would love that, yeah thank you thank you, kelsey and I think that that's the thing, right, like just go do it.

Lisa Tarkington:

And because I you could listen, and honestly, kelsey and I just had this conversation last week about something we were in our heads about a project, and we were both like, oh my gosh, we know what we're doing, like let's just go do it. And that was like, honestly, a relief off my shoulders of being like you're right, like it's so easy to talk it. You can talk it to like until it's like dead Right, but the action is what's really going to make your dreams come true. And so I'm a dreamer. So we have a joke in our family like I can dream so much and then I have to do something about it, or I can't keep talking about that dream, right. And so if you have dreams and if you're going after things, like just go and go do it, and I know you'll all be successful.

Kelsey Snyder:

That's awesome. Well, thank you for letting us turn the tables today switch seats.

Kelsey Snyder:

We'll probably have more of these in the future, so, hopefully, a lot of these questions were ones that a lot of other audience members had, and so, if you have other ones, we'd love to hear from you. You can submit it on Instagram, you can send us a message. Either way, we'd love to hear it. We'll be collecting these and then, if you want to go deeper into some of these topics you hit on, you know, limiting beliefs, positive self-talk, self-awareness I just encourage all of you to check out Lead Within. We have a special promo code for the podcast listeners, so podcast 50 you can check it out for five dollars a month. So that's, that's little plug.

Lisa Tarkington:

The gift to all of you today, yes.

Kelsey Snyder:

I think that you hit on so many good points, and it's really about those tools in people's hands. So thank you all for joining. Until next time, stay confident and keep leading with purpose. Thank you.

Lisa Tarkington:

Thank you for tuning into the Confident Podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, follow the Confident Podcast on Instagram and TikTok and share it with those who might benefit. Also, if you are looking to work one-on-one with me, message and follow me on Instagram at LisaTarkingtonOfficial. Stay confident, stay inspired and until next time, keep striving to be the best version of yourself. Take care.

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