Self-Discipline: How to Get It and Why You Need It

Ah, the new year. Every January seems to be the perfect time to focus on a fresh start. It’s a time to take a look at bad habits we’d like to break and good habits we’d like to develop. Many of us make (and a few of us keep) New Year’s resolutions. This New Year hits different. As we usher in 2021, it seems to be less “New Year, New Me” thing and more “New Year, New Circumstances”. 

Still, there may be room for working on ourselves. For a lot of us, the stress and uncertainty of 2020 left us with some habits we’d like to break. For others, we know more than ever what it’s like to dig deep, grit our teeth, and accomplish the seemingly impossible.

Is there a difference between where you are now and where you’d like to see yourself? You might already know what steps you need to take to get there. Sometimes, it’s just a matter of making a plan and sticking to it. Other times, there’s a little more to it. Either way, we’re here to help with an episode packed full of tips to help you get to your finish line.

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Imagine Yourself is hosted by Lanée Blaise and Sandy Kovach. Lanée is a TV writer and producer, motivational speaker and podcaster. Sandy is a radio personality, voiceover artist and podcaster. They come to you from the Detroit Metro area and invite guests from all over the world to help encourage you in your health, career, faith journey and more!

Transcript

Sandy Kovach  [00:00:00]:

Lot of people are skipping the New Year's resolutions this year. But with 2020 behind us, a lot of us are ready to take a look at some bad habits, either ones we developed during the pandemic as coping mechanisms or ones that we've always wanted to get rid of. Self discipline is one of the hardest things to tackle, but one of the most important, and it's big in any year. We're taking a look at last year's self discipline one zero one episode for some trying and true techniques with a few new twists.

Lanée Blaise [00:00:30]:

Attention, everyone. Get your boots on and get ready today because I'm drill sergeant Lanee.

Sandy Kovach  [00:00:36]:

You know, you gotta be a little more convincing than that, Lanee. If you're gonna be a drill sergeant, I need a little more staccato in your voice.

Lanée Blaise [00:00:41]:

Dun, dun, dun, dun. I am drill sergeant, Lanee, and we are getting in shape today.

Sandy Kovach  [00:00:48]:

I like it. So that's what we're imagining today.

Lanée Blaise [00:00:51]:

Not just getting in shape per se, but we're actually imagining ourselves making some overall changes that will turn our lives in the right direction and keep ourselves on track.

Sandy Kovach  [00:01:02]:

Yeah. Because it's not just good enough to get there. We have to

Lanée Blaise [00:01:04]:

stay there. But at the same time, Sandy, why is it so hard to do the right thing? Why is it that everything we're post to do is not the stuff that we want to do and that's fun to do.

Sandy Kovach  [00:01:17]:

Well, I think it's not because we don't know what to do because there's

Lanée Blaise [00:01:21]:

We know what to do.

Sandy Kovach  [00:01:22]:

Information. Okay. So let me case in point. So this is an Imagine Yourself episode on self discipline, if you haven't already guessed that.

Lanée Blaise [00:01:28]:

Yes.

Sandy Kovach  [00:01:28]:

So I'm doing a little research. I find this cool website, entrepreneur.com, because if anybody's got discipline, it's entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs, what are your successful ones do? So I'm reading some self discipline tips on this website, which, hopefully, I'll be able to pass a few of them along. But while I'm doing that, I'm wanting a snack. So I find these crackers that I bought that are healthy well, healthier. You know, they're baked. They've got natural ingredients in them. And that's fine if you're gonna eat a couple of them.

Sandy Kovach  [00:01:54]:

But I ate so many. I had crumbs on my shirt. I literally had to change my shirt because I'm not paying attention to what I'm doing. I'm reading and I'm eating. You ever do that?

Lanée Blaise [00:02:02]:

Just Oh, and that's that mindless eating. That's way to get you. So you went overboard on your

Sandy Kovach  [00:02:07]:

On the crackers.

Lanée Blaise [00:02:08]:

You're trying to get inspiration.

Sandy Kovach  [00:02:10]:

And here I am eating crackers. So even as we prepared for this podcast, I was exhibiting a complete lack of self discipline.

Lanée Blaise [00:02:17]:

Well, okay. Let's just do a questionnaire real quick for those listening, because everybody has a different one. And I know you and I have talked about some of ours being about fitness and eating right and healthy things like that. But for other people listening, Everybody has their own particular one. Right? So I want anyone to out there, name out loud your particular do the right thing issue. Okay?

Sandy Kovach  [00:02:41]:

Now if you're just somewhere where other people are, and you can't say it to yourself.

Lanée Blaise [00:02:44]:

Say it in your brain.

Sandy Kovach  [00:02:45]:

In your car driving, just scream it.

Lanée Blaise [00:02:47]:

Yeah. What's yours? Identify what's yours. And, like, do you really actually want to make that change? Do you really believe in the benefits that will come from that change? Do you need some help achieving that change?

Sandy Kovach  [00:03:01]:

I think most of us, it's yeah. I put that on our Facebook, the question.

Lanée Blaise [00:03:06]:

Okay.

Sandy Kovach  [00:03:06]:

And a lot of the answers were the same, fitness and diet, eating clean, avoiding foods high in sugar. I'm so addicted to it, says Kathy, Gretchen. I lack self discipline for losing weight and exercise. I always have, and I hate it. We also got things like drink less, getting time in the morning to spend quiet time with God. We've got just being more productive, waking up early so you could be more productive, And my favorite, regulating time on Facebook, Damon said that, which is another one of my things.

Lanée Blaise [00:03:35]:

Yeah.

Sandy Kovach  [00:03:35]:

It's just my phone in general, and I think social media maybe more specifically.

Lanée Blaise [00:03:39]:

Getting sucked into the vortex of distraction by the phone and

Sandy Kovach  [00:03:43]:

Down the rabbit hole. When you

Sandy Kovach  [00:03:44]:

pick up your

Sandy Kovach  [00:03:45]:

phone, you're off onto 3,000,000 different tangents that you never really meant to go to.

Lanée Blaise [00:03:49]:

Yeah.

Sandy Kovach  [00:03:49]:

And, Lanee, is your still organization?

Lanée Blaise [00:03:51]:

Mine is still organization. I wanna have my home decluttered, my life decluttered. I wanna get rid of Things purge things, whether they're physical things or stuff that I'm doing, like you said, even getting distractions, that I don't need purging that from my daily life. That's My particular hang up.

Sandy Kovach  [00:04:09]:

Okay.

Lanée Blaise [00:04:10]:

We wanna encourage those who wanna clear out that stuff to get that home and office organized, get your body healthy, start feeling good again. Some people is just focusing in general, focusing on what you wanna achieve in life and Taking that time to pursue it to get to that next level. We talked a lot about balance Yeah. In our various podcast, you know, staying balanced, Trying to remove things from your life or people from your life that are negative or harmful or not necessary so that you have more room For the good things to come in, being on time, being intentional, being more spiritual, being more loving, we wanna be cheerleaders for that today.

Sandy Kovach  [00:04:50]:

Right. And all of these little mini habits that you're talking about goes into the one bigger habit of being happier and more productive. Okay. So another website that I found while I was eating my crackers. It's called Strive. Self discipline, it's the real secret to assess if there was ever a true magical ingredient to achieve success. Self discipline would be it. Andrew Carnegie, one of the richest men in modern history commissioned a man named Napoleon Hill.

Sandy Kovach  [00:05:18]:

You maybe are familiar with these people. To seek out the richest and most successful people across the land in the early 20th century. Can you guess what the common denominator was in Napoleon Hill's decades long study of what led to success? If you guessed, self discipline. You're right. And we're not just talking about financial success. We're talking about happiness, and this happened to be financial success.

Lanée Blaise [00:05:42]:

I would have thought, like, courage or something like that, but I like the fact that self discipline because That's probably even more attainable than something like courage. You know? Yeah. You would think the average person. Right? You would

Sandy Kovach  [00:05:53]:

think, but how come it's not?

Lanée Blaise [00:05:55]:

I think it is for certain people have self discipline for certain things and not for

Sandy Kovach  [00:06:00]:

other things. Right. Right. Yeah.

Lanée Blaise [00:06:03]:

I can tell you, Sandy, the health aspect in the fitness part Yeah. To a degree. Because you can

Sandy Kovach  [00:06:08]:

give me advice. You have been giving me advice.

Lanée Blaise [00:06:10]:

Yeah. But then I am a total baby when it comes to to my own, which is the decluttering in organization. I do have Some aspects.

Sandy Kovach  [00:06:20]:

Yeah. It's not like you live in Some are yeah. You know, you're we're gonna go to Hoarders,

Sandy Kovach  [00:06:24]:

and we're

Sandy Kovach  [00:06:24]:

gonna see them

Lanée Blaise [00:06:25]:

on the TV show. Yeah. It's not like that. It's just that there's lots of room for improvement for me to get it together better. I don't know. I feel like this podcast is just our own little self help interactive little session, because I love the fact that you reached out and were getting the responses back from Facebook. People are interacting and telling what theirs, and you're finding a lot of similarities. Right?

Sandy Kovach  [00:06:47]:

A lot of similarities and a lot of frustration.

Lanée Blaise [00:06:50]:

Yeah.

Sandy Kovach  [00:06:51]:

And I wonder about self discipline. And one of the things that I was uncovering is that and I guess I understand this. It's not like any big revelation, but self discipline isn't something that we're born with. It's something that we have to learn. Yeah. Some people are brought up in different environments. Some people have very negative environments. Negative input have sometimes to do with self esteem.

Sandy Kovach  [00:07:13]:

It has to do with fear of failure. There are a lot of other things that go into it. It's not just people being lazy, although we can be. I'm not gonna say that that's not true sometimes, but we can't delay gratification. Oh, that cookie

Lanée Blaise [00:07:25]:

Yeah.

Sandy Kovach  [00:07:26]:

Looks real good right now. I'm not thinking about the wedding I have to go to that I promised myself I was gonna lose 5 pounds for. You know what I'm saying?

Lanée Blaise [00:07:32]:

And it's that part where human nature is, I guess, based for Pleasure seeking, getting what you want on a short term basis. Mhmm. Whereas self discipline is getting what you want and need on a more long term basis.

Sandy Kovach  [00:07:47]:

Right.

Lanée Blaise [00:07:47]:

And it and you feel that pinch.

Sandy Kovach  [00:07:49]:

So what are we gonna do about this? Maybe we can think of some hacks or some strategies, tips, whatever you wanna call them, to make some of these things a little bit easier.

Lanée Blaise [00:07:59]:

How about this? What if we make it like a game? Like, one of us Just throws out a problem, and the other one throws out a tip.

Sandy Kovach  [00:08:06]:

Okay. You know? Like, the tip game.

Lanée Blaise [00:08:07]:

The tip game. Let's see. Game.

Sandy Kovach  [00:08:09]:

I don't

Lanée Blaise [00:08:09]:

know. Yeah. Life hack tip game.

Sandy Kovach  [00:08:12]:

Okay. You go first with the problem.

Lanée Blaise [00:08:14]:

You mentioned someone who wrote that they have trouble starting their mornings off with designated prayer time. That's the problem.

Sandy Kovach  [00:08:21]:

Alright, there's an app for that. Whether you wanna get bible verses or whether you wanna get positive quotes, there are 1,000,001 different apps that will send you text messages, that will send you emails, however you want it, to remind you to sit down and reflect. How about that?

Lanée Blaise [00:08:40]:

I like that. That starts off your morning good. What about people who struggle with being chronically late? They can never be on time.

Sandy Kovach  [00:08:50]:

Even though I'm not very good at being on time right now. I have tackled this before successfully in my life, and I need to apparently retackle it. But I would just kinda tell myself to be somewhere a half an hour early or 15 minutes early. Like, if I needed to be at a meeting or I was meeting somebody for coffee at 11 AM. I would tell myself in my mind, 10:30. You know, of course, in the back of your mind that it's 11 AM, but you have to convince yourself, okay. I gotta be there at 10:30 because 10:30 Sandy time is really 10:45 real time.

Lanée Blaise [00:09:20]:

Yeah. It's kinda like flipping it in your brain and giving a little trick for yourself.

Sandy Kovach  [00:09:25]:

Yeah. It's the only the only thing that's ever worked for me. Yeah.

Lanée Blaise [00:09:28]:

Because you need that cushion, because anything could pop up, and that's what makes people late.

Sandy Kovach  [00:09:32]:

What makes people late. And I think we've talk about this before is we kinda underestimate how long things are gonna take. We don't consider that there could be traffic somewhere. We don't consider but if we do answer that one last email before we leave to where we're going, it could take us a few minutes even though maybe it should only take us 5. We have to rewrite it 20 times because we don't like the way we said it. So they're 20 minutes later, you know, and then you're late.

Lanée Blaise [00:09:55]:

And your message, you've built in some space. I like that. What about, you know, me personally, of course, getting my home and office and life decluttered?

Sandy Kovach  [00:10:05]:

So, yeah, we talked about this in our procrastination podcast a bit, but starting at one little thing at a time, whether it's like a junk drawer or a closet and moving on from there. And then if you can't you can't clutter it yourself, well, apparently, you can clutter it yourself.

Lanée Blaise [00:10:19]:

I can do that part.

Sandy Kovach  [00:10:21]:

Whether it's watching Marie Kondo and her magic or actually hiring somebody to come in and help you do it. There are people that are professional organizers that are very good at their craft.

Lanée Blaise [00:10:32]:

Okay. I'm gonna actually take an action step to hire a professional organizer.

Sandy Kovach  [00:10:39]:

Okay. So flipping it around, if I ask you questions and I guess I have one big concern. Maybe you have some tips for me on staying healthier.

Lanée Blaise [00:07:32]:

Okay. So although I am not an MD And although I'm not necessarily, I don't have a degree in this, I promise you, I have talked to so many people and really concentrated on things. And I even have a cousin who told me she said it best, because there's a few different areas. There's, like, the food area, the exercise area, and then the emotional area. As for diet, my cousin was telling me, Lanee, don't take the fun out of food and eating and cooking. You don't want it to be some monotonous, sad process, you know, to be healthy. And it may take a few Google recipe searches or things like that, but just try to add some different choices and mix it up and liven it up, keep it fresh and spicy, you know, like a love life, you know, with your food choices so that you don't get in a rut. That's one of them.

Sandy Kovach  [00:11:42]:

I like a I do have a problem, though, when you're looking for things online, and tell me if you found this. You can't even just, like, Google a recipe anymore. It always goes to somebody's blog page where they spend, like, 15 minutes telling you about how their grandmother used to cook this. And, you know, and then you scroll down. Finally, there's the recipe.

Lanée Blaise [00:11:41]:

Or how about then kick it old school and just go in the grocery line? And when you're about to go out, they've got those a 1000000 different little Southern cooking or whatever type of magazines and just grab a magazine I'm not gonna help you. Magazine? Yes. No. Oh, no. A magazine that just has recipes.

Sandy Kovach  [00:12:14]:

Not gonna pick up paper.

Lanée Blaise [00:12:15]:

Oh, then I'm gonna send it to you. I'm gonna tear it out of a magazine and leave it on your doorstep.

Sandy Kovach  [00:12:21]:

No. I'll find recipes. I get your main point is to Keep it fresh and

Lanée Blaise [00:12:26]:

lively.

Sandy Kovach  [00:12:26]:

And there are a 1000000 ways to find recipes nowadays.

Lanée Blaise [00:12:29]:

That are healthy. Yes. Exercise. Same thing. Mix it up with the change of scenery sometimes even. Don't just be like, okay. I'm gonna go to the gym, workout in the gym. Sometimes you might want to pair that workout or power walk out in nature, not just on the treadmill, but, You know, depending on the season, you can go out.

Lanée Blaise [00:12:49]:

I saw this the other day on Instagram. Sincerely, missus Mommy. She's someone that I follow. She was working out At a beautiful park, like just the park with a group of moms, they had their little babies in the strollers, and they were doing squats off the side of the stroller. They were doing push ups off The side of the picnic tables, all kinds of things just to make their workout a little bit more fun, and exercising alongside one another Gives you the whole boost and gives you the accountability for success.

Sandy Kovach  [00:13:19]:

I love that. That's very cool. Yeah.

Lanée Blaise [00:13:20]:

And then the last thing, of course, emotionally, give yourself some grace. We are all unique. We have unique body types. We have certain foods and certain exercises that work for us. What may work for me may not work for you, so Don't get so into the fact that worked for them and not for me. Men tend to lose weight faster than women, So don't get yourself discouraged in a

Sandy Kovach  [00:13:43]:

you know? Get in a competition with your husband.

Lanée Blaise [00:13:45]:

Thank you. Well said. You know? And, of course, just like you said with me with a professional organizer, Same here. You might need a professional, a dietitian, or a nutritionist to help you craft what's best for your body type and get you the best results. You're the type you always say there's an app for that. I'm sure there's an app for that type of stuff.

Sandy Kovach  [00:14:03]:

Oh, there's a 1,000,000 of them.

Lanée Blaise [00:14:04]:

So that is my take on fitness tips.

Sandy Kovach  [00:14:09]:

But now the next piece of this is not just doing it, but sticking with it and making it a habit. That is the only thing that's gonna make make a truly lasting difference.

Lanée Blaise [00:14:20]:

That is so true. If you can push past and we've talked about this another episode, that 21 day rule. If you can get through that 1st 21 days of pressure and pain and dislike, then it can become a healthy, good habit.

Sandy Kovach  [00:14:36]:

Right, if you can do something for 21 days, it gets ingrained, and it becomes like a lifestyle habit more so. And there are other things to help you along with that. And one of the things I'm thinking is just taking away the temptation in general or doing whatever you can to take the temptations away. Don't have a lot of bad snacks in your house if you're trying to watch your weight.

Lanée Blaise [00:15:00]:

Yeah. Or I was watching this show the other day, which it was one of those ones where I had to tell my son to leave the room because he's only 14, but they were talking about some guy who's just cheating up a storm. They're like, where are you finding all these women to cheat with? And he's like, oh, on Instagram. Oh. Okay. Take that temptation away.

Sandy Kovach  [00:15:19]:

Right.

Lanée Blaise [00:15:19]:

And he didn't want to, of course, but he's because he's in a committed relationship. That's the other whole part of this. But if you really want to preserve your committed relationship, pull yourself off of that Instagram live thing. That's what was messing him up. And like you said with the even though you did try to do healthy ones, you know, try to limit what you put around yourself.

Sandy Kovach  [00:15:39]:

Exactly. When you go to the grocery store, don't walk past the ice cream if

Lanée Blaise [00:15:45]:

Yeah. Don't even say ice cream.

Sandy Kovach  [00:15:47]:

I know. And that was another one. Like, Kathy, one of our Facebook commenters. I I know from past experience commenting with her on Facebook that she has a particular weakness for ice cream, which I also share. So I don't know what it is about ice cream.

Lanée Blaise [00:16:00]:

Well, there's another one too. I have now have a policy where I don't want to try anything that you think is delicious. So if you say, oh, you know, this new brand of ice cream is just so good. You gotta taste it. Nope. I'm not going to taste it

Sandy Kovach  [00:16:12]:

if I

Lanée Blaise [00:16:13]:

ever want to want it.

Sandy Kovach  [00:16:15]:

That's right. You don't need to have something else that you're craving. It's so funny. I was thinking about a lot of people continually have diet issues health issues. They always wanna strive to be better. But I didn't used to really have it that much, or I used to be able to be better disciplined. And it used to be in my mind, it's just like, that's not a food I eat. I don't eat candy bars.

Sandy Kovach  [00:12:14]:

I don't eat that. I don't eat that. And I had that mindset. Of course, this is years ago.

Lanée Blaise [00:16:43]:

But everything you're saying though there, I have 2 answers. Once again now this is a weird one. I just heard recently that every 3 weeks, You get brand new taste buds.

Sandy Kovach  [00:16:54]:

And if you heard it sound on the Internet, it must be true.

Lanée Blaise [00:16:56]:

But this was a person who told me, and they're not a doctor or anything, but but let's assume that they're correct. Okay. That every 3 weeks, your taste buds change or kind of do a turnover process. Yeah. And once again, that 21 days that you can take away from a certain salty or sweet food or something like that. Then when you come back, you won't really need that sweetness anymore. Your body will have adapted, and it'll taste maybe too sweet or too salty.

Sandy Kovach  [00:17:25]:

I have heard people that do a sugar elimination, or maybe, you could just cut sugar out at least partially.

Lanée Blaise [00:17:33]:

Yeah.

Sandy Kovach  [00:17:33]:

I am probably not gonna be able to ever go back to the mindset of I just don't eat that. Although, I guess, if I did it once, could I?

Lanée Blaise [00:17:39]:

That's another one of those quotes that found this wonderful quote. This is by Aristotle. How can you go wrong? Mhmm. We are what we repeatedly do. So excellence then is not an act, but a habit. Okay. And just practice it. Practice it.

Lanée Blaise [00:17:55]:

And also watch those thoughts too. Don't sell yourself short and say that you are already out for the count, that you won't go back to that old way. Maybe use it as incentive that you can go back to that form a way.

Sandy Kovach  [00:18:08]:

Okay. Well, that's the whole point in this podcast is that we're gonna help ourselves and other people. Self discipline is a learned behavior and a skill that requires daily practice and repetition.

Lanée Blaise [00:18:19]:

Yes.

Sandy Kovach  [00:18:19]:

Even if you can just set smaller goals, like, I promise I'm gonna get out and wake up just 15 minutes early. And even if I only walk for 10 minutes or get on the elliptical for 10 minutes or do something, make attainable goals.

Lanée Blaise [00:18:35]:

Attainable goals. Make attainable goals. Keep reminding yourself of the benefits, and understand that it's not gonna be easy at first. It does take that practice. It's not as fast as you might like. I don't know if you've ever seen that commercial. I love this commercial. It's it's actually of all things for, like, pneumonia vaccine.

Lanée Blaise [00:18:53]:

But it says, what if you could eat 1 piece of broccoli to keep the cancer away? And then they have this lady eating 1 piece of broccoli. And what if you could do 1 push up to keep heart disease away? And this guy does 1 push up. And I was thinking, what if I could do one good stomach crunch And be like a dress size slimmer.

Sandy Kovach  [00:16:41]:

I think we'd always do it.

Lanée Blaise [00:19:14]:

We all would do that, and we know that that's not the case. I urge you to just give it to 3 weeks and try to be inspired by things that you see around you. This is not just about fitness. This is about everything. This society loves Redemption stories. Okay. The movies that are popular are always the ones where, like, you have the underdog and they rise up.

Lanée Blaise [00:19:36]:

Rocky is Something that's decades old, that movie. He was going nowhere, and then he ends up having to fight the world heavyweight champion. And he had to train his body and train his mind and get his confidence level up. And I do know that this was just in a 2 to 3 hour period Right. Movie. But We definitely don't solve all of our problems in 2 to 3 hours, but we love that. And the part as far as self discipline, You know, in Star Wars, the good guys had to use self control

Sandy Kovach  [00:20:04]:

The force.

Lanée Blaise [00:20:05]:

The force.

Sandy Kovach  [00:19:36]:

But they had the force, Lanee. Yes. We don't have the force.

Lanée Blaise [00:20:08]:

We might have the force. Just need a little more self discipline. No mind control if you can't get self control. And like the Lion King, we were kinda talking about earlier how you said that It's not necessarily that people are just lazy. There are other factors at play. But when Simba did kinda go off and he Was living hakuna matata every day and just eating bugs and chilling out and doing whatever and acting a little bit on the lazy side. It was refreshing to see that he got that jolt. He got that jolt, and he realized that he needed to ditch all of that.

Lanée Blaise [00:20:42]:

He needed to step up, go back to his kingdom, use his courage and his self discipline and his strength and his wisdom to clear out those hyenas that were acting all crazy. So sometimes you gotta just step up and clear out the hyenas.

Sandy Kovach  [00:20:56]:

Okay.

Lanée Blaise [00:20:57]:

Yeah. In your own life.

Sandy Kovach  [00:20:59]:

That's right. I've got many hyenas that I need to clear out. I'm thinking, though, that everybody has got their own different kinds of hyenas. Right?

Lanée Blaise [00:21:06]:

There are so many things. That's why I really want people to focus in on what theirs is, if it's to be more intentional, if it's to watch their temper, the way that they talk to their loved ones, The way that they speak their inner dialogue to themselves. I have another quote. Self discipline begins with the mastery of your thoughts. If you don't control what you think, you can't control what you do. Start with the thoughts. Because once you hear Something coming in that is off. Like, you know, I'll never be able to try to cut it off.

Lanée Blaise [00:21:42]:

Practice that too. Practice cutting that off right then before you can even get the whole thought stop it. You know? Yeah. Pull that one back and try to replace it. This whole idea of positivity, that's such a buzzword now. It's because we don't naturally, in human nature, have all the positive thinking mindsets down pat. So we do need to read positive things, listen to positive things, whether it be podcasts or books or listening to lectures, anything to try to retrain our own mindset and get that mode that lets us know we can do this

Sandy Kovach  [00:22:20]:

end rewarding yourself for each little victory.

Lanée Blaise [00:22:23]:

Yes.

Sandy Kovach  [00:20:08]:

Don't just think, okay. I wanna lose 20 pounds, or I want my whole home to be spotless by Tuesday or whatever. Little things. Like and I think that we've talked about this in another podcast maybe before. Just celebrate the small victories even if it's a choice. Hey. I decided to eat an apple instead of going for ice cream. Even if it's that one little victory, every time you make a choice, you're helping to build a habit.

Lanée Blaise [00:22:52]:

There are so many ways to come at this. The biggest Takeaway, I hope, is that aspect of retraining your mind, putting yourself in situations where you do get positive affirmation. I also know that social media can be good or bad, but when you're using it for good and this is one I think I've shared before also. In the morning, one of the first things I do Is check Instagram? I have 2 different accounts, though, but I look at the one that has all the positive quotes. The kind of good morning. Let's start ourselves off right. God is with you. You can do anything.

Lanée Blaise [00:23:28]:

What is that? Ed Mylett had one the other day. You're only 1 decision away from a whole new life.

Sandy Kovach  [00:23:33]:

Yeah.

Lanée Blaise [00:23:34]:

There are so many beautiful things that happen when you start your day like that.

Sandy Kovach  [00:23:39]:

Or you're laughing at Spice Adams.

Lanée Blaise [00:22:52]:

I love Spice Adams. Oh my goodness. His the other day was stepping out Monday morning, and he's got this ridiculous Lavender suit on.

Sandy Kovach  [00:23:50]:

I love the outfits.

Lanée Blaise [00:23:51]:

And these lavender shoes. And he is strutting his stuff on out of the garage that morning. How do you not start your day off great that way?

Sandy Kovach  [00:23:59]:

So starting your day off with something positive, whether it's quotes, with a little bit of laughter, that is feeding right into our self discipline and our motivation and feeling good about ourselves. And here's another one, and we talked the whole time about forgiveness. What about this is forgiveness on a smaller scale. Yes. Little f, forgiveness. Forgive yourself when you make mistakes and you eat those crackers.

Lanée Blaise [00:24:25]:

And you fall behind a little bit. Yeah.

Sandy Kovach  [00:24:28]:

Or your home's still cluttered. You really haven't done anything. Or, you know, just because you've been busy. Why continue to beat yourself up? It doesn't make it it's not better.

Lanée Blaise [00:24:37]:

No. So in those cases, give yourself grace, dust yourself off, try again.

Sandy Kovach  [00:24:42]:

That's right. Pick yourself up Yeah. And move along. And have a vision too, do, maybe, of the end. While we don't wanna say, okay. By next Tuesday, my entire house is gonna be decluttered, maybe you do have a vision of what it is gonna look like.

Lanée Blaise [00:24:56]:

So many beautiful things. I feel like time to give a few little takeaway. I'm all ears. Number 1, Because we're all different, we have different ways that we can attack this. You can take baby steps, or you can just go straight cold turkey. You can get help from a friend like you do on, Who Wants to be a Millionaire. You get a lifeline or try to do it all by yourself, or you can use resources, Counseling if necessary, depending on how big of an issue we're really dealing with. Books, podcasts, inspirational stories, That whole Instagram positivity, make sure that you go through and delete the ones that or don't follow the folks that are spewing out negative things.

Lanée Blaise [00:25:37]:

Follow the ones that are spewing out positive things.

Sandy Kovach  [00:25:39]:

Yeah. It's your Instagram feed or Facebook or Twitter or whatever on social media. Take that stuff out of there that is not helping you.

Lanée Blaise [00:25:47]:

That may be someone's goal right there too. You know, that part about removing things from your life that are no longer serving you And replacing it with things that are. So you swap that out. Just make sure you focus on doing your right thing because we are rooting for you. We do have our own issues that we're dealing with as well. And Sandy and I did kind of agree we're gonna try to Partner and do a better job of helping each other. So overall, imagine yourself grasping hold of enough self to focus in and make those beautiful changes that you've been wanting to make in your life and staying on that path that leads to those magnificent changes.

Sandy Kovach  [00:26:30]:

Thanks for listening. We love to hear your feedback and how you're doing and what your struggles are. Hit us up at imagine yourself podcast.com where you connect to our social media or send us an email. Until next time, we have something new to imagine. Take care, and here's to a great 2021.