920 | Stop Giving Your Power Away: 5 Steps to Become the Hero of Your Story

You don't need more confidence. You don't need to keep starting over. You don't need to fix yourself. What you need is to stop giving your power away. It's time to start acting like the hero of your own life story. In fact, you don't need to fix yourself. You don't need to start over again and again. What you need is to understand that you are the hero of your own life story. You need to stop giving your power away and start designing a life of your own creation. Hey guys, I'm Rachel Hollis and this is the show where we talk about life, real life. Around here we cover everything, from habits and motivation, to relationships, parenting, and what it looks like to build a life that you love. If you're trying to grow, heal, or just feel a little bit more like yourself, you're in the right place. Okay, let's talk about what a hero is. Let's start right there at the top because I think that it's easy to see the title of a podcast like today and think that it's asking you to be someone different than you actually are. So I would love to define what I mean by be the hero of your own life. If you think of books or movies, you think of the hero of the story, that word on the surface is like the winner, the superhero, the person who figured it out, the person who solved all the problems. But in every good story, the hero doesn't start out that way. In fact, the hero is never awesome at the beginning, middle, and end because as long as stories have existed, there's something called the hero's journey. There's this guy named Joseph Campbell who wrote this example of the story a hero will go through. And it's something that writers often use when we're writing movies or books to help illustrate the journey that a human being goes on to become who they are. Here's the problem. When we hear the idea of hero, the only thing we see is the end of the movie. The only examples we have are what it looks like when it's finished, when that person has figured out all of the mysteries and they have solved all of the problems and they've overcome their hardships and now they're the winner. If you see the word hero, it can feel like a disconnect from your very real life because maybe in your life right now, you don't feel like you're winning. You don't feel like you've figured everything out. Maybe that's not a term that you feel like applies to you. Right here at the top of this episode, what I want to do is shift what that word means. It would be so helpful if you could start to see the hero being the protagonist. What is the difference? Well, a protagonist is who the story is about. They are the person who pushes the narrative forward. It's the one that we follow in the movie or we follow in the book. Certainly, there are movies and books where it's like a group of people and they're all doing a thing together. But this is your life we're talking about. So even if there are other people involved, you are the protagonist of your story. Set another way. You are meant to be the hero of your life. You are meant to be the one that the story is actually about. So when I have a conversation with you guys about being the hero of your own life, what I want for you is to feel like it's your life. Not like you're just a side character in someone else's story. Let me give you an example of a moment in time where I feel like my life went from I'm a character in a bunch of other people's movies to, oh, this is my life. So the first time that this happened for me was in high school. I had grown up in some really hard conditions with my family and had used my imagination for most of my childhood to think about what life would be like when I got out of the town that I was born into. And I didn't have the word visualization back then. I didn't know that's what I was doing, but that's what I was doing. I was constantly focusing on what life would be like when I got to leave my hometown. I know when I got to get away from my family and like go build my own life. And I thought about it and thought about it and thought about it and I have so locked in my memory, the moment that I drove out of Bakersfield. I remember playing the Dixie Chicks, Wide Open Spaces on CD in the car, driving up over the grapevine to LA, and I wasn't a character in their movie anymore. I wasn't inside of this chaotic drama and whatever happened with my parents and whatever happened with my family. And I was sort of like dragged around by their choices and their drama for the first time in my life. I had total ownership, good or bad, awesome or totally screwing it up. I was the hero. There I was in the green, plymouthic claim, driving up over the grapevine, listening to Wide Open Spaces like here I go, I am the hero of my own life. Y'all that didn't mean that when I got to LA suddenly things got easier or magically all worked out perfectly or I got to Mary Mat Damon, which was like my main goal. None of those things happened, but at least for better or worse, I was the captain of my ship. The second big time I can remember this happening in my life is when I went to my first personal development conference. It's like 2017 and I had been working on myself for several years. I had been struggling with some pretty severe anxiety. I started to read books and find out whatever information I could find out about how to help myself to feel better. I started going to therapy. I was doing all of these things and it was all very new for me. It wasn't something I had grown up doing like I didn't know about personal development. I definitely did not know that there were conferences you could go to and you could spend a week in like trying to learn yourself and trying to create a plan for your life. I found out about Tony Robbins through that documentary that was really popular. I had known about him in a way I think that sort of people knew about like, I don't know, you knew about self-help people, but I didn't really know his work until I saw that documentary and I was like, I really would love to try this. I just would love to go have this experience. Now, incidentally, that documentary is about an event he does called Date with Destiny and I went to an event he does called UPW, Unleash the Power Within and I think that's actually a really good piece of advice when you're trying to figure out like how to be the captain of your own ship. I think you get ideas but you're not meant to follow the exact path that someone else walked down. You're meant to like get the idea and then find out how it works for you. I went to his website, I looked at all of these different events that he was hosting and then I read what they were for and I remember that like Date with Destiny talked a lot about like relationships and your past and I felt like I'd done a ton of therapy about that and I kind of didn't want to spend a whole week doing that more if I'm being honest. I saw UPW which was like feel powerful and empowered and I was like that one. Like I, that's, I need that thing. So I went into this experience which was life changing. It was life changing for me on so many levels. I went with a group of people from work and it was life changing for them on so many levels and for the first two days, this is a four day conference. For the first two days, I am like on fire, if you've ever been to one of his conferences you're jumping up and down, you're doing all the things. You're there for like 14 hours, they're like walking on coals like it's a whole thing, right? If you know, you know. And I was so excited by the experience but something started to like irritate me if I'm being totally honest and it was the fact that speaker after speaker after speaker came on stage and not one of them was a woman. But first I didn't, I was just like having a good time and it was great and whatever. But then after like multiple days, I was like really? There's not one, like there's no woman who can speak that like not one because I am so grateful for the wisdom of like anybody. I want your advice and I want your ideas but especially in that setting where they're sharing thoughts about like how to change your life or how to grow your business or how to, you know, level up and I'm, you know, they'd be like, you gotta go all in and you're going to go back home and you're like going to crush the world and in the energy of the moment you're like, yeah, I'm going to go crush the world. But in the back of my mind, I was like I am, I do want to go crush and do amazing things in this world. I also have babies, like I also am going to have to get up with a baby in the middle of the night and I'm going to have to go make school lunches. And I also like have to make stuff for the bake sale and it's so amazing to get people's perspective. And I think we have this now. There's so many awesome podcasters, I was just talking to my son about this. There's so many awesome podcasters in the business space specifically. But what I'm looking at is the like all these people who are in the business space and sharing ideas with you, they're not women, most of them. And if they are women very rarely do they have children. And so getting their advice is very inspiring and they can absolutely share great wisdom about how to increase your sales or how to do these things that are sort of the business metrics. But I also don't really feel great taking advice from, you know, a dude in his 30s who doesn't have kids who's telling me how many hours I need to work a day in order to be successful. And I don't shame anybody like do your thing and there is a person for whom that advice is going to be life changing. But at this conference, I'm sitting there and I'm like, gosh, I just wish it wasn't that I didn't want to hear from the guys. I just kept saying by wish there was a woman who was talking to me about this stuff because if she's sharing her ideas, it's going to hit me in a different way. And also, I'm going to believe that it's possible, right? If you get up there and you're like, I got three kids and I built a business that does 10 million a year and I was able to retire my parents and I was able to send my kids to a better school and like take my family on vacation. If you tell me that, I'm going to take that to heart. So I just kept thinking, I wish there was a woman, like I really wish there was a woman. I kept thinking today, it just like was this voice in my mind. And then I remember we were doing this exercise where you do like map out your 10 year vision. You know, I'd like to speak more because at the time I was doing a ton of keynotes, but it was more about like business and I never done anything motivational. And I was just like, I'd like to speak more this year and I'd like to this. And then it was like a laser beam. I just thought, oh my god. What if I, what if I could be the woman on the stage? It was so crazy and that sounds so simple now, but I had never seen that. I didn't know anybody who was a keynote speaker at that level. And I'm also at one of the biggest events that exist in the space and there are no women on stage. So there was nothing that was sort of indicating to me that that was like the path. But I remember it hitting me like a lightning bolt. And it wasn't like I am going to be this person. It was what if I could be this person? That was the moment that I went from being an extra in Tony Robbins movie to being the lead character in my movie. When I talk about this concept of being the hero, being the captain of your ship, being the one the story is about, I think that some people feel a little like twitchy because they think, well, if I'm the hero of the story, like, well, what about my husband? Well, what about my best friend? Well, what about my sister? What about my parents? What it's almost as if you believe that if you step into your power and you are who you are, you have this fear that it means you're not going to show up for them correctly. And I would love to challenge you if that's a fear that you have, I would love to challenge you on why you believe that you're better showing up for them if you stay small. Why do you believe that? Now sometimes we believe it because we've actively been taught that by our family, by our friends, by our partner. But I think a lot of times we believe it because of stories we make up in our own mind. We make up stories about what will happen if we live an empowered life. And I know there are a lot of really crappy examples of what it is to be empowered. I think over the last five, ten years, the example of empowerment has often been sort of like alpha, bro, over the top. But some of the most powerful people I know are soft-spoken. Some of the most powerful people I know do not, you know, lead with the fists. They lead with their mind. They're strategists. They're bright. They're brilliant. They don't need to like bang the drum and push everyone out of the way and be the bull in the China shop. Empowered to me is being fully embodied in who you are. If you have actual power, you don't need to use it to affect other people. I know. It's crazy. I love the leaders in this world right now, but actual power is not something that you need other people to even know about or acknowledge. Empowerment is something that happens in you. So when I say being the hero of the movie of your life and being the one in charge of what happens next in the story, I wonder why that would be anything but exciting to you. Because you're meant to be the hero of your own story. You're meant to be the one that decides what comes next. That's your birth right. That is your divine right is to decide that you want to get into watercolor painting or to change jobs or to go back to school or to take up running or to go to therapy to get your health and check like this is your one life. You are meant to be leading it. And leading again, I just, I really want to hammer this home for you guys. It doesn't mean that you throw up mental fingers and know you're no longer part of your marriage. It doesn't mean that you tell your family you can't be. It just means that you stop asking for permission to be who you are. For today, I would love to talk about some things that you can do to take your power back or maybe to even experience the power within yourself for the first time ever. What does it look like to be the hero of your own life? Maybe you don't even know what that feels like. Maybe that's why it's so scary to you is because you don't understand what it would be like to experience that thing. So let me walk you through some stuff that you can try. And in trying these things, I hope that it starts to feel better. I hope that you find some confidence you didn't know you had. I hope that you begin to do things that maybe you wouldn't normally do or put yourself into situations you wouldn't normally go into because you are tired of this mundane existence. You are tired of just trying to keep your head above water. You are tired of life living you. You want this to be the year where you start living your life, not letting your life live you. And we all know people like that, right? I have so many people in my family who life is living them. It's always like they are for various reasons stuck in a responsive cycle, meaning like they are just constantly responding to whatever life throws their way. And that is so freaking dangerous. Because if you are responding to what life is throwing at you and that is the only energetic output you have, the odds that you're going to live a happy existence are pretty freaking minimal. They are because life is so hard right now. I open my phone, I look at the news, I look at social media like it's terrifying. So if all I'm doing in this life is responding to what other people put out, unless I am living in some happy, healthy commune, which I am not, I am living in Los Angeles, unless you're in some happy, healthy commune, then responding to what life throws at you is dangerous. You have to set intentions, you have to have a plan, you have to reach for things, you have to move forward in faith. You can't just stay here, stay stuck, and like, oh gosh, I hope, I hope nothing happens. I hope it will be okay. They want me to volunteer at that, okay, I'll volunteer at that thing, and okay, I got to go to my husband's Christmas party, okay, I'll go to my husband now, I got to get a dress, like you're just responding to stuff. And honestly, I guess if you're listening to me talk right now, you're watching this on YouTube, and you're like, hey, Rach, I am just responding, and it's a vibe. I love that for you. I guess keep on trucking, but every single person I know that I look at and think they are thriving. They are happy. They are doing things they feel passionate about. Every single one of those people is the hero. They are the ones choosing things. They are charting a course, life throws them off track sometimes, but they are the ones who are going, okay, that's my north star, and that's where I'm headed. So let's talk about a few things that you can try and hopefully begin to experience more of that as you head into the new year. Okay, so the first place that we're going to start is with awareness. And you want to experience more power in yourself. Your first step is that you need to understand where the power is leaking. So you need to take stock. You need to be aware of situations, of people, of experiences where your power, where your energy feels depleted. And I mean literally you go have dinner with that friend and you're driving home and you're just totally exhausted. I went hiking with my friend Shia the other day and we did this. We did Framing Canyon, if you know LA at all, which should take you, I don't know, an hour. I don't even know how long it is. It's like we did the whole loop. And we started at the top, walked down, did the loop, came back up to the top. We got to the top and I was confused about where we were. I was like, there's literally no way we are back at the top of this mountain. We were having such a good time. It was such high vibes. There was such good energy that we had flown like that fast an hour went by and not only was it an hour, but it was an hour hiking. Like it's not a joke that hike. We lost track of time. We ended up sitting at the top of the mountain and talking for another 45 minutes because we were just having such a vibe. When I got in the car, it was like I had three shots of espresso hanging out with her gave me life, gave me energy. So if you have people like that in your life, you have mentors or friends or people that you work with that whenever you hang out with them, they give you power. That is who you want to spend time with. And then you also want to be aware of any experience, anytime, any conversation, anything where you feel like you are getting smaller. Now here is where people get this twisted. They think that they are meant to cut out every single person who is an energy drain on their life. But I'll tell you what, if I was meant to cut out every person who was an energy drain on my life, I would have stopped parenting all of my kids when they hit to, right? Like, come on, you can't just stop interacting with people just because you feel weaker when you interact with them in a perfect scenario. If you're going through the list of your friends right now and you're like, you know what? Every time I hang out with Carl, I am so stressed out, I end the situation. I feel worse about myself or I regress as a person or end up gossiping the whole time. And I leave that interaction feeling like crap. And you know that you shouldn't be hanging out with Carl. Stop hanging out with Carl, okay? But if it is a situation where you know you can't not interact, whether it's your co-workers or your kids or your sister or whatever, then the quest for you is not, how do I interact less? The quest for you is how do I set myself up for that interaction so that I'm not depleted when it's done? And that can look like a bunch of different things. For me, it's often to identify what is the overarching feeling or thought that I have when I'm done with this experience that makes me feel worse. And how do I set myself up for it in advance? So on the other side of this, I didn't lose sight of myself. An example is years ago when I would go to family interactions. And I had family members who were very stressful, very passive aggressive, very catty would just say like really crappy things to me, not even under their breath, just like straight up. So every time I went to go interact with that family around the holidays, I would go into the situation and I would drink wine. That was how I dealt with it. I would drink a lot of wine, not in a way where I'm like fallen in the floor, but in a way where I'm feeling sort of like numb to the fact that that person's being a jerk. And when I identified that I was doing this, what was happening on the other side of the experience that I was so depleted by was not the family member. What I was depleted by was that I had broken a covenant I have with myself in order to manage the interaction with that family member. What would have been better for me is if I actually had the courage to be confrontational until them they were being inappropriate, but I was not there yet. But what I understood was, you know what, if you go into this situation and you need to reach for alcohol to numb yourself on the other side of it, you will feel worse than if you had just like stone cold sober dealt with that person. As I went forward with working on myself, I made the decision to do everything I could to hype myself up before I went into those interactions. So I wouldn't reach for the numbing technique that I had developed. So what that looked like was, I would listen to music beforehand, I would jump up and down, I would hype myself up, I'd put energy into my body, I would imagine boundaries around myself, I would pray, I went into those situations thinking, I am going to be the thermostat, not the thermometer, I am going to be the one who sets the temperature of the room, not takes the temperature of the room. And if I go in here and I am bringing energy and love and good vibes, even if that person wants to be a jerk, it's going to bounce off me like I'm just not even taking it in and it completely changed my experience. The irony is that the more I did that, the more I felt empowered in those situations until I got to the place a couple years later where I would tell them, oh no, we're not going to do that. And it wasn't like a fight, I didn't get into some big altercation. I was just like, oh, that didn't make me feel very good. And calling them out in the moment in front of everybody was embarrassing for them because people who love passive aggressive comments don't expect to be called out. All of that to say, it starts with you being aware. Make stock of situations, experiences, people that make you feel small, that make you feel weak, that make you feel like you are not in control. Just by identifying when that is happening, you can see the ways that you are not showing up for yourself. Okay, step one to taking your power back is awareness. Step two is authority, authority is understanding that you are the most important authority figure in your life. For some of us, that is wildly disconnected from any reality we know. If you are like me and you grew up with very strict rules around authority figures, so I grew up in a really conservative religious home, which taught me from a very early age that there were a lot of authority figures and they mattered and what they thought was more powerful than what I thought. So those authority figures were God, my dad, basically anyone who was a man, anyone older, like respect your elders or something I heard over and over and over, well, I think the intentions behind that were good. I was being raised by people who were raised by people who were raised by people who believed that that was true. What it does to each subsequent generation is take away their discernment of what is appropriate for them. In fact, I think a lot of us found ourselves in situations as children or teenagers or even early adulthood, where we were in environments that were not appropriate for us, or we were told things that were not appropriate for us, or maybe we were in situations with adults that were super uncomfortable, but we didn't say anything because we were told that you were supposed to respect your elders. Like me and so many women and some of my guy friends have stories about that throughout our lives where we were in situations where like an older guy was making us uncomfortable or we were in an environment where someone was telling and we were like, oh, like this is not okay, but we didn't feel like we could speak up because that would be rude. There's a fantastic book that I've been talking all about forever called the gift of fear. And in that book, the author who had come up in private security, so he's like done a lot of work in taking care of like celebrities and different things, Gavin DeBecker tells all these stories of times where women especially would be in environments where they didn't feel safe or they didn't feel comfortable, but they didn't want to be rude. So they would stay in the situation and then end up getting hurt because they felt like they were not the authority figure in their own life. And I don't mean to say that it always has to be that extreme, but I think you and I probably could sit down and have a glass of wine and like share a lot of stories about times where if we could do things differently, if we had just listened to our own instinct, if we had just prayed on it or meditated on it and really tapped into our inner knowing, we would have known the truth. Like can you look back at a time in your life and identify a situation where you went right, but you knew you should have gone left. And if you had gone left, things would have turned out so differently. So I wrote an entire book about getting in touch with your intuition and the questions that you could ask yourself to find the Easter eggs in your life, like to look back over your history and go, oh, that was the moment. That was the moment I knew that guy was a scumbag and it was on our second date. So why did I date him for three years, then get married, be married for 10 years, then get confirmation that he was in fact a scumbag, something I thought the whole time, but I didn't listen to myself and I saw it from the beginning. If you can identify those moments where you didn't listen to what you know is right and instead you listen to a voice of authority and it turned out terrible, I think it gives you a bit of courage to start to listen. And you do have that instinct, like right now today, where are you getting nudges, where are you getting instinctual, like, oh, I think I'm supposed to do this. I don't think I'm supposed to do that. And babe, it doesn't have to be this big grandiose thing, like I think I'm supposed to go to Nepal. It's not that y'all are going to think I'm so dramatic, but this morning, I was going to the gym and I was like, I think I'm going to take some B12. So I typically take B12 before I go run. It's important for me to get B, but I can't take B12 unless I'm going to go do something with, like, I'm going to expel a lot of energy, otherwise I get jittery. You did not want to know all this, but I held the B12 in my hand and I was like, just two seconds. I was like, should I take this? We're not going to get into kinesiology though it is fascinating. I know what a yes is in my body and I know what a no is in my body. So I was like, should I take this, even though I take it all the time, but some days it like hits me wrong. So I was like, should I take this? And I was like, yes. And then I took it. This is so silly. You're like, Rachel, this doesn't matter. It does. It does matter because you know what, every single day, if you are on social media, you are bombarded by thousands of different opinions, thousands of people telling you what you should do among any area that you are slightly interested in. And probably a whole bunch of areas you didn't even know you cared about, right? You're going to go scroll YouTube, you're going to scroll on TikTok, you're going to scroll on Instagram and be like, here's business advice, here's health advice, here's what you should wear those shoes with, here's what you, it's all opinions. Opinions are like belly buttons, everyone's got one. So if all day long, you are bombarded with opinions and you struggle with authority, then even reclaiming those simple moments for yourself, should I take the B12? Do I want greens on my sandwich? Do I want that, should I go, do I want to cut, do I want, like just checking in with yourself to remind yourself that you are the authority figure that matters most. If you hear that idea, like you are the authority in your life and you go, well, yeah, obviously, fantastic. We love that for you. Most people I know do not feel that way. And if you don't have a visceral, like, yeah, I am the authority figure, you need to check in with yourself. You need to ask, who is the authority figure? Who is the one in charge? When I was early in my first marriage because of how I was raised, I would ask my husband's permission to do everything, literally everything. I'd be like, is it cool if I eat the last Oreo? Now remember him being like, everything I did, I asked his permission because it was just ingrained in me that I wasn't allowed to go do my own thing. Now I am almost 43, I am in my second marriage and I don't ask for anything and not in a rude way. I'm like, hey, I'm headed to the gym. Do you need anything before I come back? Hey, I'm going to do this. Hey, I'm going to go meet Beth for a coffee. Hey, I'm like, we don't ask each other for permission because we are not in charge. We are in charge of each other and it's just like little distinction but if you're someone who struggled with people pleasing or authority issues, it's a really important choice that you need to begin to make. Okay, the third thing that you need to do is you need to change the narrative that you're telling yourself. You need to take control of the narrative of your life story. I hope you listened to last week's episode where I talked about the mirror exercise. It's this nightly routine that helps you to break negative self-talk. But the gist of that practice is that our brain does not know what the truth is. Our brain believes the truth is whatever we repeat. So whatever we tell ourselves over and over and over again, that becomes what our truth is. And most people are living a story that they did not design. Think about that for a second. Did you design your life like the life that you're living right now? Is this a creation of your own design? In fact, if you're watching this on YouTube, will you comment and tell me if that question or that thought just like major brain explode a little bit? That's why would you be living a life you didn't design? You design your wedding. You design your birthday party. You design your vacations that you want to go on. You design the living room, one of the throw pillows. You design all the elements of your life. You design all this good stuff. Did you design your life? And if you didn't, why? Because things happen to us and we respond to them and things happen to us and we respond to them and things happen to us and we respond to them. And then suddenly all those things that happened to us and whatever our response to them was, shapes the belief that we have about the life around us, what is possible, who we are, what we can do. And that becomes a life that we're living. If you didn't, this is a heck of a time to think about what the design life would look like. And I have to tell you this, I have to tell you that we are launching the premium version of the podcast and my entire goal for this year is to take you through a process that will help you figure out what your freaking life is. Okay. So starting in January, we're calling the goal, like what do you want from this year? What do you want to do? Where do you want to go? In February, we're talking about the process. How do you figure out how to get to that goal in March? We're talking about how do you embody this person? And you become this person and live as her. So it's a deep dive episode every single month, as well as the community around you who's doing the same thing because the thing is, I don't think you need more ideas. There's so many ideas for you on the internet. I think you need to hang out with other people who are living life the way you want to live life. So if you are interested in that, keep your eyes peeled, more information on that soon. First episode launches January 5th. We'll tell you all about it when it happens. But the most important thing is like, is this a creation of your own making? And if it's not, do you understand that it should be? This life should be a creation of your own making. If you haven't called your shot, if you haven't said that this is who you want to be and this is where you want to go and this is the energy you want to have and how you want to show up in the world and the legacy that you want to leave behind you. If you haven't done that, that's why you're not living it. You don't know that you can. You don't know that you're allowed to. You don't know that you can begin to figure out how to get to a better place, a different place. I believe that you can make your life better. I know it is true. I have seen it over and over. I'm a living example of you can make your life better. But making your life better starts with your understanding that you got to figure out what you want the story to be. If you don't figure out what you want your life to be, someone else is going to tell you what your life is. Do you get that? It's like, there's this expression, and I don't know who coined this, but they say if you don't figure out how to build your dream, someone will hire you to help you build theirs. You got to know what you want. You have to understand that this is something that you can create. I think it is your divine right. I think that you have infinite potential inside of you, but until you step forward into that potential, you don't see what's next. Some of you don't understand that just like a few steps in front of you is a life beyond your wildest imagination, but you won't take another step to sort of see what comes next. The next step is agency. Agency means ownership. It means control and the fastest way that I know of for you to take control of your life, for you to feel like you are back on track, is to take ownership of the little things inside of your day. The little bits and pieces, it's closing the loop, it's crossing the thing off the list, it's finishing the task, it's folding the laundry, it's making the bed, it's getting the thing done. It starts with the little stuff. In a perfect world, you'd be able to snap your fingers and you would have full ownership of your life in its greatest expression, a decade of success down the road, but that's not how it works. It starts with little daily habits, routines. You're finishing the thing, you're keeping your word, you're not breaking promises, you make to yourself. It starts with you taking agency of small things. If you don't believe that works, it's because you've never done it before. Because any of us who have achieved the big stuff will tell you that it started with little things. Getting to this place where I've sold millions of books and spoken on stages all over the world, that started with one daily practice. That one daily practice was waking up at 5am and writing words and those words sucked and I didn't know what I was doing and nobody cared if I wanted to write a book and nobody was asking me to do that, but every single day I woke up at 5am and I wrote the words which brings me to my last piece of advice for feeling like the hero of your own life and that is acting as if you are the hero of your own life. You have to act like the person you want to become, you have to practice, you have to embody, you have to behave like her or like him before you become that person. That is how you become that person, you have to behave like that person and when I was trying to write a book that nobody cared about, getting up at 5am and writing words was what my future self does. At the time I was like well I want to be a writer, I want to be an author, I want to write down things that I think will be helpful to people and that future version of me, I don't know a lot about her but I know that if she writes books that means she writes, it was so simple and I was like okay well I got a full-time job and I got these babies and people in my life aren't super supportive of me wanting to do this so I figured a way to do it which was I'll get up early before anyone else can see what I'm doing because remember I didn't have confrontation skills back then and I didn't feel like I had agency and I didn't realize where my power was being drained, I didn't realize any of those things. I just knew maybe if I do it at this time I won't frustrate anybody and so I got up every single day and it was so powerful because it was how I started every single day, I started as future me and it just gave me tools and it gave me ideas and it gave me thoughts and it allowed me to pretend it is the number one law of attraction and manifesting if you're into any of that stuff if you're into quantum physics and our ability to to energize through our thoughts it all starts with acting as if, acting as if so even if you don't feel confident but you act confident it gives you something you say act the way you want to feel if you don't feel joyful if the kids are coming home from school and you're in a bad mood make yourself start laughing make yourself put a smile on your face make yourself show up with energy with power that is what tricks your nervous system into starting to believe like okay I'm safe in being this person this isn't scary this is who I am your brain does not believe the truth your brain believes whatever you repeat over and over again from a neuroplasticity standpoint neurons that fire together wire together when you do something over and over again like you know putting your shoulders back when you walk into a room holding eye contact with people even though that makes you feel uncomfortable getting up and doing the activity every single day when you do that again and again your brain just like oh this is the truth now five different things that you can try that will allow you to start to feel more empowered inside of each and every day the most important thing is not that you do all five the most important thing is that you understand that you are meant to have ownership of this life you are meant to feel like if you go do something it will affect the trajectory right like if I go sign up for something if I go plan a trip if I that things will change that things will move that I am the one deciding my destiny I am the one and that means if your life is awesome incredible because you made it that way because you were the hero and you figured out how to get to that point but if your life isn't awesome if there's some area of your life that you feel frustrated by or just fed up with or like sick of this or just you want to change things with all the love in my heart that's on you too that's on you see it's easier to not be the hero because if we're not the hero we don't have to take responsibility for the stuff that sucks if we're just the side character in our husband's life story if we're just the extra in our mother and laws drama if we're just this person I'm not bothering anybody I'm just like doing my thing then you get to blame them when you're not happy we are not in the blame game you and I it's not getting us anywhere it's not doing anything we're in the game of life we're trying to make something from this experience we're trying to do cool stuff we're trying to experience beautiful things we're trying to help the world and spread light and love that's what we're doing and if you want to experience more of that then you have to take more ownership of this I hope that that was helpful guys I hope something I said fired you up and made you think okay what are we doing where are we going get in we're changing our whole lives we'll be back soon with more conversations like this one there's a fantastic moment to remind you if you are vibing these episodes girl subscribe you better subscribe okay like you know the rules of this game this podcast will always be available to you for free and what we ask is just that you like help us with our work and you you subscribe just just be a be a friend hit that subscribe button I'll be back soon with more conversation until then as always I love you and I'm rooting for you the Rachel Hollis podcast is produced by me Rachel Hollis it's edited by Andrew Weller and Jack Noble.