10 Ways to Be the Best Version of Yourself! (Part 2)
If you missed part one, you’ll definitely want to go give it a read. You can find it HERE.
If you’d rather listen to this post, go HERE.
Principle #6 – Energy and Health
A Joyful You has to have energy. She has to feel well.
If you’re having a hard time getting around or getting out of bed, you’re going to have a hard time living in your highest potential.
The goal is to be radiantly alive.
To do this we need to take care of ourselves physically.
We need to make sure we’re eating well, moving our body, and getting enough rest.
This is the number one thing I do as a coach. I help people to figure out their relationship with food and their body so they can stop overeating and have the energy and vitality they need to show up in the world.
Every area of your life is better when your body is better.
I think you all know my story, but just in case you’re new around here, let me briefly share it.
About 6 years ago, I was 50 pounds overweight, and I felt it!
I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, and chronic Epstein bar, I had no energy, I took 3 naps a day.
I was depressed, moody, ornery, and irritable.
I can definitely say I was not showing up as my best self, in fact, I wasn’t really showing up at all.
I went from dr to dr looking and hoping for a quick fix,
“Please let there be something wrong with my thyroid so I can just take a pill every morning and I won’t have to do anything challenging or uncomfortable.”
I don’t want to change my habits! It’s just too hard.
Well, the dr’s could find nothing wrong with me. Yet I kept feeling worse and worse.
This was my wake-up call.
It was time to do something about it.
As I stepped out of my comfort zone and changed my relationship with food, myself, and my life, I did all the things I teach you and my clients to do, not only did the weight come off, but I started to feel better.
My aches and pain went away.
My mood improved drastically! I had energy to show up the way I wanted to as a mom, a neighbor, a community member, and now as a coach helping other women.
You need energy! Without it, you’re just like a sloth, hanging around day after day.
Principle #7 is WISDOM
Becoming the best version of ourself means we keep learning and implementing what we learn.
We just need to be careful that we don’t let this become an all or nothing thing. What I mean by that is that we don’t consume consume consume and do nothing with all the information.
A wise person, implements what they learn.
They put it into practice.
They use it to improve themselves, to spiral up.
They also teach it to others.
Principle #8 is COURAGE
Dan Sullivan teaches a concept called the 4 C’s.
He says first we have to COMMIT to becoming A Joyful You, the best version of ourselves, this means we do whatever it takes.
We demo what’s not working and we step out of our comfort zone to do what it.
So Commit is the first C.
The 2nd C is COURAGE.
It takes courage to step out of our comfort zone. It takes courage to keep our commitment to ourselves and to others. It takes courage to do hard challenging things and to build new habits and to let go of old ones that aren’t working for us.
Without courage to take the necessary steps we get nowhere. We stay the same person. We don’t grow. We don’t improve. We stay stagnant. And that’s no fun.
Courage to commit, to do or not do things takes us to the 3rd C which is CAPABLE.
We become capable. Just like the story of learning how I learned to quilt that I shared with you last week. Once we’re capable at doing something that’s where CONFIDENCE, the last C comes in.
Courage leads to confidence.
The root of the word courage is COR which means heart.
To me, courage means to go at it with all your heart! Put your all into it!
Principle #9 is Love
The two greatest commandments are to love the Lord your God and to love thy neighbor as thyself. (see Matthew 22:36-40)
At the root of the best version of you is LOVE.
Love for God, love for others, and Love for yourself.
The world J-O-Y itself is used as an acronym for Jesus, Others, Yourself.
When we love others, we naturally want to serve them. And one of the best ways to make yourself happy is by serving others.
American Philosopher and poet, Ralf Waldo Emmerson said, “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”
In other words serve others!
Serving others doesn’t have to be some huge endeavor. It can be something as small as a smile or opening the door for someone else.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve waited in line to buy something and the person in front of me paid for my order. Talk about feeling seen and loved.
I love it when I’m the recipient of service, but my most favorite is to be the server.
I get way more excited just thinking about how I can make someone’s day or how excited they’re going to get. There’s no better feeling in the world than the love you feel when you serve someone.
When you serve someone, you can’t help but love them.
Principle #10 – ENTHUSIASM
Let’s break this word down.
EN means inside or within
THUS comes from the Greek word theos meaning God
And iasm makes a word a noun.
So one way of interpreting the meaning of the word enthusiasm would be God Within.
If we want to become the best version of ourselves, if we want to become A Joyful You, we need to have the Divine within us.
When we have God’s Spirit in us we have such an enthusiasm for life.
We want to use our power and influence to help change the world for the better.
Enthusiasm is a virtue.
Another one of my favorite quotes (I have a lot of them) is from Elaine Dalton, she said:
“ONE virtuous woman led by the Spirit can change the world!”
The word virtuous means power or strength or enthusiasm.
So we could reword her quote to say: “ONE enthusiastic powerful, strong woman can change the world.”
Everyone of us can change the world.
We’ve talked a lot about tearing down the old you and building a new you and how we have to do this over and over and over again.
We need to change our thinking, our habits, our relationship with food and sleep to create what the New Testament calls a “new creature”.
In 2 Cornithinans 5:17 it says “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”
And when we do this, we have the power to individually change the world. How cool is that?!
LESSONS FROM THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA
One of my favorite stories on this topic comes from a CS Lewis Chronicles of Narnia book. I’ve been looking for an opportunity to share this story in a podcast and today is finally the day! WHOO HOO!
This story comes from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and it’s about Eustace Scrubb.
Now if you haven’t read the book, Eustace is a spoiled selfish kid who gets a large fortune.
One day, he falls asleep with his treasure and wakes up to discover he is no longer a boy, he’s a greedy dragon with dragonish thoughts in his heart.
Eustace spends several days trying to figure out how to turn himself back into a boy.
In a most desperate moment, he starts peeling off the dragon skin. He peels and peels and peels but to his dismay, it doesn’t work and he’s still a dragon.
In enters Aslan the Lion who tells Eustace he’ll have to let him undress him.
Eustace is afraid of Aslans claws but by now he’s desperate so he lies flat on his back and lets him do it. Let me read what the book says -This is Eustace speaking:
“The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. . .
Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off. . . And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been.”
You’re probably thinking the uncomfortable part is over right.
Wrong – next Aslan grabs Eustace and throws him, tender and skinless, into the water. Eustace says, “it smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious”
Why? Because he had turned into a boy again.
PEEL OFF THE LAYERS
Change and growing into our best self is like peeling off layer after layer of skin. We also can’t do it on our own and we weren’t meant to.
The scriptures tell us that the way we put off old habits, aka the natural man, is through Christ.
When we allow the Spirit of God to work in us, just like Aslan peeling off the skin of Eustace, only then does change become possible and permanent.
Enthusiasm is what makes all the other Principles possible.
