Bite-sized common sense reminders

Hello, my beautiful people, and welcome back to the Moments Podcast. I'm your host, Lexi, and I'm not going to take up too much of your time today. What I'm going to be telling you are 10 things that are probably common sense, and you're going to hear me say them and you're going to say Lexi. That's common sense. Obviously, I know that, but then I'm going to need you to reflect for a second. Think back a second. Have you been applying these common sense things to your life? Probably not, because we overthink everything and anything, which leads me to my first one. You overthink all of your own mistakes, more than anybody else does. And the prime example of this is how often there's a stranger on the internet. Okay, does something wrong? Does something a little shady? Does something we don't like? It's a little canceled, let's say. Two weeks after that incident, not saying this is necessarily a good thing, it's not crossing my mind. It's likely not crossing your mind, and it's really crossing nobody's mind except the person at fault. Everyone is human. Everyone makes mistakes. You will never be a perfect person, but you will spend so much more time exhausting yourself if you are constantly trying to be perfect and trying to justify things and trying to like say this or say that or be good in every aspect. It is so much easier and you will grow so much more and you will actually be a way better person if you just grow and move on. You know that nobody else is thinking still about what you've done unless you're constantly trying to like justify it and make reasons and excuses for why you've done what you've done. And I think later on this list, I actually wrote this again in a different way. But I think that's because I do see it as a very important one. Allow yourself to move on. Allow yourself to grow. Allow yourself to make mistakes because if you don't allow room for mistakes, you don't allow room for growth. Okay. Moving on. We're going to keep this episode really short, really simple, really to the point. I've missed you guys. It's been a while since we've chatted. These are just things that have been heavy on my mind. This one's kind of a stab. So brace yourself. Okay. Your future depends on your actions and not your intentions. Oh, my drop. Right. Yeah. This one kind of hits hard for me because I tend to have a lot of goals. Those that are just filled with a bunch of empty space and not a bunch of action and movement towards those goals. So every year when I make my New Year's resolution list or I make my vision board, I kind of just expect those things to come true. I expect them to come to fruition and come to reality without me taking any steps towards them. Whose problem is that? Not yours, mine. And I'm sure that there's many of us that can say the same for our own lives. I don't say this to scare you, to stab you, to really hurt you, just to think about it. The way that you wake up every day and the things that you do every single day are the most important. The smallest habits are the biggest ones and the most long term impactful ones in your life. And that is a truth, not a lie. Evaluate your days. Ask yourself what you're doing with your days. Ask yourself what you're doing with your free time and just see, in wonder, is this a step that the best version of me would be taking towards being the me that I want to be? If the answer's no, change it up. No harm, no foul. Move on, grow. Number three, you do not need to date a loser. Okay. And I don't mean to roast your partner, your friendships, whatever it may be. I'm not trying to call people a loser. I think it's just a really good way to get the point across. You don't have to be with somebody that you don't want to be with, to put it quite simply and quite frankly. There's nobody stopping you from choosing what you want to be around in your life and what you don't want to be around in your life. Just because you've been with somebody for five years, six years and they've really, I'm not saying you should just give up on a relationship if you're having a hard time and you're working through things. It's never what I'm saying. But I'm saying if you're being mistreated, if you are being made small in, and I said a romantic relationship here, but again, I'm also talking about friendships. If you're in something that's unhealthy, that you don't need to be in, that you know that you are willingly choosing to participate in, that you know is hurting you or hurting someone else in the long run, you don't have to stick around with it. Common sense maybe, but much harder to execute. And I completely hear and understand that, but I just want you to think about it. Don't hurt somebody else's heart. Just because you're trying to like save yours or vice versa. Just know that you have choices. You have free will and you don't have to stick around if somebody's making you feel like garbage. Moving on. Number four, you don't always need to have an opinion. Moment of silence for that one, because I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut and sometimes I like to speak on things before I actually know what I'm talking about and sometimes it would be better if I just didn't do that. Sometimes you can be indifferent about things. You can be central about things. You don't have to have an opinion on every single thing ever. If you like kind of like pickles, but you don't love pickles, like you're just indifferent towards pickles, right? I always forget that. That's why I know that it's common sense, but not to me. To me, I like to always have something to say about something, even if I know nothing about it. And sometimes I should just keep my mouth shut. So should you, respectfully, with love. Number five, those who have time to judge others. They have too much time in their hands. And really what I mean in that one is, we've talked about this many times before on this podcast. If you are to point in your life or you are happy, successful, and content in what you're doing and who you are, and in every single thing from the inside out of you, you don't have time, most of the time, to have something negative to say about somebody else, to have something negative to say about somebody chasing their dreams, about what they're wearing, about how they speak, about the things that they do, or the things that they say. Like you don't have time to focus on really niche qualities about others. If you yourself are busy and full of love and joy and happiness, it's simple. So I like to often remind myself that when someone has something negative to say about something so silly, like the color socks I choose to wear, or the bracelets on my wrist, or the nails that I like to get. There are many people in your life who will have a lot of valuable information and valuable constructive criticism to give you that want to see you grow and become better and evolve as a person. That's not who I'm talking about here. I'm not trying to give you this bullet point and be like, "Nob, everybody's just jealous of you. Like nobody has anything good to say to you." What I'm talking about are the people who visibly only speak on things to target your insecurities and to make you feel worse about the person you are. Those kind of people are not the kind of people that you need to value an opinion from. Ask yourself, "Is this person, do they have something that I look up to? Are they a person that I would be willing to switch places with? Because maybe if they are, what they have to say might be a value." If not, move on. Okay, where will you want? Be who you want. Love who you want. Let the haters hate. Number six. This one could be controversial. I'm sure a couple of these could be, but this is something that I've really experienced in my own personal experiences through life and through my mental health journey. Sometimes showing up for others is more important than showing up for yourself. Now I know forward facing that might sound crazy in a society that is all about me. What about me? How do I better be? Fill up my own cup. Right. I have learned that sometimes when my cup is so empty and when I can't fill into my own cup, sometimes filling up other people's cups is what is going to bring the juice to my cup. We crave community. I know that society has not taught us that we crave community. I don't know what is in the air about me, me, me, me, about selfishness, about focusing on only you. And I'm not denying that if you need to fill up your own cup and you know how to do that in yourself, you have to do that. I'm not saying give up your entire life for others, but I'm saying we need community. And community fills us more than we realize. And I think that we have been very pushed away from community and pushed into this hyper individualistic society for reasons that I don't know and I can't comprehend and I'm not going to try to put into words. But what I can put into words is that filling up other people's cup is only going to fill yours up more than you realize. When you show up as a villager, you will have a village to lean on. We need each other. We feed for each other and we don't realize it and sometimes we're all so twisted and turned on the inside that we think that we can fix all of our own problems, but really friendship can, fellowship can, community can, laughter with your friends, with your family, with your partner. Sometimes you just need others. And that's my truth. Okay, so I don't know that one maybe isn't common sense. That one might be a little controversial, but think about it. It might not be right for everybody right now, but it's something to think about. Number seven, you don't have to respond right away. This one's kind of silly because what do you mean? You know, like you get a text message and it's maybe it's a heated conversation. Maybe you have a little argument going on, a little conflict. You think that you need to get on that right away because we're given this tool that can help us respond quicker than you can say, "Better finger." You know? But that's not always the goal. The way that our human brains work. We sometimes need a second to decompress. We sometimes need a second to reflect. We sometimes need a second to just kind of evaluate what the heck is in front of us and what is going on. And oftentimes when we respond as quick as humanly possible, we're not in the right mind quite yet. We respond out of emotion, out of anger, out of fear, out of these situations inside of us that haven't fully comprehended the situation at hand. When we take a second, when we don't respond right away, we tend to view something, go through our emotions, our oftentimes selfish, me based emotions. Like if somebody's upset with me for something that I did, my first response is, how can I blame someone else? At least I'm honest. If you guys are all liars, that's fine. I don't respond on that thought though, because that is what I'm not supposed to do. Well, we're not called to do. What is not even accurate. But when I'm so quick to blame somebody else, if I sit on that for five, 10 minutes, sometimes five, 10 days, depends what kind of situation we're talking about here. I'm often forced to take some more time to think past that, because sometimes you're wrong. And sometimes when you wait to respond, you learn that. And you can move on with that. And also sometimes like you aren't in the wrong, but it's still nice to give yourself time to decompress and to respond at a later date. And beyond this even being a conversation about when you're in conflict, this can just apply to anything. Okay, if somebody says, oh, let's go get coffee right now, you can't go right now. That's okay. Say let's do a later date. Let's do a rain check. Don't answer. Get back to them when you can. Slow yourself down. There's a lot of access to a lot of quick things that are fingertips. And sometimes our bodies are just craving a moment to slow down. Okay. Number eight. This is very similar to number two. And I apologize. I didn't relook over this list after I wrote it. I said, this is what we're getting into. So this one must be important enough to say twice. If you mess up, say you're sorry. It's that simple. Okay, do not try to defend everything you've ever done. Justify everything you've ever done. Be perfect in everybody's eyes. People please to everybody. Sometimes like the best way that you can people please is own up to your mistakes. Even if they're not big mistakes, be an apologetic person. Okay. I think that for so long, another thing that I was feeling pushed upon me through podcasts, through social media, through, just in general, was to stop saying sorry for everything. To stop saying sorry for your emotions, your feelings, your behaviors. And I think at, on one end, this is very true. You don't have to be apologetic for who you are at your core. If that's your weird quirks or your goofiness, or you having a loud personality and somebody telling you to be smaller, never apologize for that. But always apologize if you've hurt somebody. It's simple. I think that's been lost. Maybe it's been lost in translation. I don't know. Don't be afraid to apologize. Common sense, hard pilted swallow, but it changes a lot. It will make your friendships more long lasting. It will make your relationships stronger. It will make people around you more forgiving. It will build your community. It's just like, okay, to be wrong and to learn and to grow. That's like the whole human project. You cannot learn from things if you don't make mistakes. So stop trying to never have them ever. Obviously always aim to be a good person. But don't beat yourself up when you fail once in a while. There's always room for growth. Number nine, you can stop liking things. You can start liking things. You can change. Common sense, I fear. But just know that you don't have to be the same person at 19. That you are at 24. You don't have to be the same person at 24. That you are at 25. Allow yourself to grow and to make changes and to try new things. I'm starting ballet. Okay, I say that. I haven't done it yet. I haven't even booked a class. But it's a goal of mine and I will spoke it out into existence. I want to do ballet. Did I ever like ballet? No, when I was little, I actually hated it and I quit when I was five because it wasn't for me. Change, growth. You're never going to find who you really are if you don't allow yourself to find who you really are. If you don't like dig into your heart and your mind and you don't branch out into new worlds. You know what I mean? You're just going to be maybe you, but a version of you that is not full, not to her fullest extent. Number 10, told you this was going to be a nice quick episode. We're running a nice little 15 minutes and we're at the end. You become who you are around. You've probably heard it a million times. Okay? You become the five people that you keep closest to you. So I encourage you to keep someone inspiring around you, someone kind around you, someone hard working around you, someone authentic around you, someone goofy, someone silly. Whatever it is that you desire in your life, not like this person has a G wagon and I want a G wagon. No, what do you want to be like? What do you want people to feel when they're around you? Surround yourself with people that make you feel that way. And this kind of can tie back to you. You don't have to be friends with people who make you feel sad or date someone who makes you feel bad. Okay? Have you guys seen that rhyming guy on TikTok? He wears a sweater and he's like, have you ever been, I can't even do it. I'm not going to do it. Just look up rhyming guy with sweater on TikTok but I felt like that guy for one second there. You choose who you're around and who you become. So give yourself back that power and evaluate things. Simple, I love you. That's all I have to say today. We can do more episodes like this if you like these little bite sized increments. Let a girl know, happy to do more. It's rare for me to not talk my own ear off. So I'm glad that I saved you guys the stress of that today. I'm looking into my front yard right now and all of my ducks are coming. I have ducks, I feed them oats. They start coming to my front yard and when I tell you they are the greatest joy, I mean it. So I'm going to go feed my ducks and hopefully take all of these things into account and apply them to my mind and probably have to remind myself about them next week. So let me know what you guys want to hear. Drop a little comment, drop a little like, a little rating, follow me on other platforms if you'd like but I love you guys with my whole heart. Thanks for tuning into the Moments podcast. See you next week. Bye. - Hi, I'm Tamsen Fidel, journalist and author of How to Menopause and Host of the Tamsen Show. A weekly podcast with your roadmap to midlife and beyond. We cover it all from dating to divorce, aging to ADHD, sleep to sex, brain health to body fat and even how perimenopause can affect your relationships and trust me it can. Each week I sit down with doctors, experts and leaders in longevity for unfiltered conversations, pack with advice on everything from hormones to happiness and of course how to stay sane during what can be, well let's face it, a pretty chaotic chapter of life. Think of us as your midlife survival guide. New episodes released every Wednesday. Listen now on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.