Is it time to Give UP or Level UP?!

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At a crossroads and trying to figure out if it's time to let go and move on or time for you to grow and step up? This episode can help you get clear on the right direction, how to hear your gut, and figure out if it is time for you to give up and move on from something in your life or to step up and level up! Knowing the difference between when it's time to quit and when it's time to grow can make a huge impact on creating the life you want.

This is something that I have struggled with so many times, and I know everybody does, because there's a fine line, when you know you're at that fork in the road, and you're trying to figure out, is it time for me to quit, and let go and move on? Or is it time for me to quit making excuses to step up and make the necessary changes in order to move in the direction that I want. So I'm excited to talk about this, because there's a couple things that I've learned in my journey and experience that has helped me kind of figure this out more and to get more clear in making those decisions. And I hope that in sharing those things, it'll also help you get clarity on your life as well. Like most of the other episodes, in this podcast, the number one thing that comes down to this situation is knowing your self. There is nobody else that can tell you the answer on what to do in your life, that's going to feel best, except for you. And a lot of times what can happen is we can have our gut or intuition screaming at us telling us what the right answer is. But we don't really like what we hear because it would require us to experience some discomfort. So instead of listening to that, we go around everybody else asking them what we should do or what the best thing to do is and then we get really confused. And talk about how we don't know, I don't know, Should I continue this and keep working and pushing through this? Or should I quit. And I used to dive into like trying to help people discover this. But honestly, I always tell people now I'm like, you know, you know what you need to do, you just are coming to me because you want me to tell you something different than you already know. So there's the hard truth of that. If you are in a situation where you're trying to figure out if it's time to move on and let go. Or if it's time to step up and grow into who you need to be to move forward. More than likely you don't even need to listen to the rest of his podcast because you already know the answer to that. However, the rest of this podcast, I am going to give you some tools and tips that can really help you just check in with your gut and get clear on the answer.

So my Dad has this saying, and I've used this same so many times in my life anytime because a quick story when I was younger, so when I was in my teens, 1617 years old, and my dad's build a successful life for himself. And after dinner, we used to take walks together. And I've always been highly ambitious, because I just have always and I know other people have struggled with this too. I've always felt behind. Even when I was a teenager, I felt somehow I was behind in my success and like I was failing as an adult. So we used to take these walks together and I'm like trying to conquer the world at 16. And I would get so frustrated and discouraged. And I'd be like dad, am I ever gonna make it? am I ever gonna be successful? And this was usually when I was in a situation where I was in a job that I was unhappy with, or I felt undervalued. Or maybe I was dating somebody that I felt that way with and I would get really frustrated because instead of making the decision to exit that situation and move forward, I would just find myself at these Crossroads trying to get directions. So I would have these conversations of like, Am I ever going to make it my total failure in life because I'm 16 and I'm not making six figures and he'd always laugh and just kind of like give fatherly wisdom of like Ashley, you have so much time on your hand, like Calm down, just be 16. But he used to never tell me what to do. And it would frustrate the hell out of me because I just wanted the answer. Somebody to tell me what to do. And I mean, the reason he never told me what to do is very wise, because it creates a situation where he is enabling me to rely on him, instead of teaching me to rely on myself and my own gut instinct. So he would give me this thought of, you'll know the right decision, when the pain to stay in a situation is greater than the pain to leave a situation. And I always use that as an indicator, because I've been in plenty of times where I'm like, I'm done, I quit, I can't do this anymore. And I would sit there. And I would ask myself that question: is the pain to stay greater than the pain to leave? So is it more uncomfortable for me to stay here in whatever the situation is, than the amount of discomfort I would experience by leaving that. So that's one of the things and if it is more uncomfortable to stay, then it's time for you to grow and move on and let go and continue a new chapter in your life. And I've always found that really helpful, because it leads me to my next point, is whether we choose to outgrow or stay in a situation a lot of times life will make it so uncomfortable for us that we have no choice but to move on. So you have your intuition. You're sitting there, I don't know if you're journaling or praying or talking to yourself or whatever your mode of checking in and being self aware is. And you're asking this question, what should I do with my job? What should I do with my career? Where should I move? Where should I live? Should I be in this relationship? Should I start a new relationship? And you're asking the question, looking for guidance, and you're getting frustrated? Because you're like, God, I wish I just had like a crystal clear answer, and you're getting it and you're ignoring it.

What will happen is life will start to make your environment so uncomfortable, that you have no other choice except to move on. So think of it in terms of (I love analogies and visualization, it just helps me understand concepts better); So you're this squishy, fuzzy little caterpillar walking around on the ground. And you're like, this is awesome, the ground feels great. I love this life. It's so easy. I'm just like rolling through. And it's super simple. And then all of a sudden, you start to go into a cocoon. You're at your crossroads in this cocoon. And you're like, Hmm, I mean, it's warm and fuzzy here. I don't really know what to do. But like, it's kind of nice, I'm wrapped up in this blanket, it's just totally supporting me, it feels so good and familiar. And then all of a sudden, your fuzzy little cocoon starts to break. You're like crap, no, don't break, because I feel really comfortable and warm. And I don't really know what's gonna happen if this breaks, because now I'm not on the ground anymore. And I don't really know how to get out. And we turn into these caterpillars where it's time for us to outgrow our cocoon to spread our wings and fly. By the way, I don't care how cheesy This is, it makes sense. And instead of like embracing this, we want to stay inside of the environment that we've known that is literally too small for us. And why do we do this? We do this because I don't know how to fly. I don't know how to be a butterfly. I've been crawling around on the ground for all of the life that I've known Why the hell do I want to break out of this comfy fuzzy cocoon and fly and never touch the ground again. So instead we fight it, we fight it? The cocoon keeps breaking. We're like nope, not getting out of this thing. Let me go ask my friend Joe over here who's also in a cocoon what I should do to escape breaking out of this environment because all we know is how to be a caterpillar and like we got to figure out how are we going to get back to being a caterpillar. This is what we do in life. And everybody gets scared from time to time. Everybody hates discomfort. And I've said this before your ability to tolerate discomfort has a lot to do with how far you go in life and the kind of life that you're going to create because it is not comfortable outgrowing environments is not comfortable because it means that you move into an arena that not only do you have no control over because you're not really sure what it should look like or shouldn't look like. But it requires you to develop new skills meet new people totally be just free falling and building your plane on the way down hoping that the thing flies. Again, this is all when you know that it's time for you to level up and outgrow something anytime I am going through a period of growth or trauma To make decisions and get some direction, I actually will spend less time talking to other people about it, and more time with myself figuring it out. And I basically tell people, you need to make sure that you are turning the volume up on your own inner guidance and turning the volume down on everybody else. 

What can happen with loved ones and it's not with ill intention, it's just it happens, they love us, they want to protect us, they want to take care of us. And this is friends to family members, friends, people that are in our close circle, we decided we're going to completely just shift change our lives totally up level and do these things that we've always dreamed of doing? Well, a lot of times when you do those, you shed light on other people and areas that they may be playing small. So when you start to share ambitions and dreams and desires, and that you have all of these things that you want to pursue in your life, it immediately shines light on other people. And what can happen when you have the volume on them turned up a little too loud is because they are scared to experience discomfort and break out of their own mold and their own cocoons. Whatever environment they've been in, that's been keeping them small, they can start to project their fear and worry that they have for themselves on you. So it's a lot of the conversations of like, Well, I mean, I totally support you and your dreams. But I mean, that's really tough. A lot of people don't succeed at that. And like, why don't you just why don't you just stay here? Like, is this not enough for you? Why are you always trying to do other things like are we not enough, and then it's like the guilt trip. And then it's like trying to subtly discourage you. But when you know yourself well enough, you realize that it's not necessarily that they want to hurt you or discourage you. It's their own projections of fear and insecurity that end up getting put on you. So you have to be careful when you're going through periods of growth and trying to make decisions at crossroads that you almost have to take a little bit of space, turn all that external noise down and really turn your own volume up and check in to determine Is this the next thing for me? Is this the right decision for me? And I almost anytime like people will ask me like, you're really been talking about, like, what are you doing, like what's going on, and I won't talk about it, I won't talk about it. Because I actually didn't realize I do this. Now I know that I do this. Because I have to have such a deep sense of confidence and assurance and belief in myself, when I make a decision before I start talking to other people about it.

Because I need to have that strong of an internal compass, that when I do start talking to other people that I'm not concerned about whatever their feedback or input is, because I have already made the internal decision. So then I can talk to you about all of it. Because I'm not concerned if you're going to support me or not support me because I have turned down your volume and turned up mine. So this is super important. Because naturally, the easiest thing to do is you're struggling with the decision of Should I quit and give up? Or should I level up, you want everybody else to tell you what to do. You want to go to external sources, because you're relying on these other people to navigate and dictate your life. However, you are the only one that is 100% responsible for what you do and don't do in this life. So the more you start to depend on that. And there's nothing wrong with getting support. And you can be selective with the people that you get support from. When they encourage your aspirations and your dreams. There's nothing wrong with using those people in your life in a positive way. But when other people's belief in you dictates and navigate your own belief in yourself, that's when you have a problem. And that's when you're going to get confused your own belief in yourself. And what you want to do is going to always have to Trump other people's belief because here's what happens is when you go down a journey of like, you know what I'm going after my dreams leveling up, I believe I can do this. And this applies to everything, not just your career. This also applies to like if you want to go after living in a certain area of town, I don't know. Or you want to travel the world or you want to ask out the person that you've been dying to ask out but everybody's like, that person's way out of your league like what are you doing? Anything, anything that pushes you outside of your comfort zone. You need to have the belief in yourself because when you You start to go down that path, immediately you're going to hit resistance and rejection, immediately other people are going to think you're nuts, you're crazy, they're going to tell you, it's a bad idea. They're going to want to knock you down. And you have to have such a stronghold to continue to move forward. This also goes in alignment, too, though, with one of the other podcast episodes, where I was talking about how you have to be connected to your wiring, your vision, your wiring, your vision has to be so strong to pull you forward, that there is literally nothing that can stop you or change your mind. Because it is that valuable. And that important, and it means that much in your life. To keep you moving forward. I will use the example of my own business for all of this analogy, because what happened and I'm not going to go into the entire story, it would take way too long. But what happened was, I was doing the Personal Training, and I was getting kind of burnout with personal training sessions. And I knew that I wanted to not only hit a bigger financial goal, but I also wanted to make a bigger impact. I wanted to help more people and I had kind of maxed out how many people I could impact with just local personal training. And I didn't really talk to too many people about it, or like ask for their advice, honestly, because most of the advice that I was getting was like, why don't you just go get a job? Or why don't you just start doing this or so and so was successful at this, you should do that. And like that irritates me because I'm like, No, no, I have my own path. Let me give me space. Let me figure this out. And I took like two weeks. And every morning, I would get up at like 5am before I had my first client and I would sit with a pen and paper, light my candle, drink my coffee, and I would sit there and pure silence and like really get clear on like this life that I am wanting to move forward to and get very clear on what does it look like to me what feels right. And anytime I've done this exercise, if I'm having to try really hard to create the visual image of it, then I know it's not right. So that's like a number one indicator for me.

If I'm like sitting there, and I'm trying really hard to bring up images that reflect this life, it means it's not a good fit. And I am forcing something that is not a part of my path. When I relax, and these ideas and the way the life looks, all those things start to flow. I know I'm moving with the flow of life in the right direction and on the right path. And I'll just start writing things out. So I start visualizing all these things. I've got these ideas and these images, I feel and mind you this is when I'm a personal trainer, I think I was making like, I don't know, 35 $40,000 a year. Nobody knew me except for Brandon Florida. And it was the 20 or so clients that I had that was a It's not like I had anything to navigate this direction. So I'm sitting there and I'm seeing myself like, I'm talking on a stage and I want to inspire people. And I want to really just like help people believe in themselves. But I also want to help them with nutrition and fitness. And I want to be able to work from anywhere in the world. And I want to have a large audience so that way I can make a big impact. And like I'm thinking of all these things, and I'm writing them all down. And I'm like, Okay, now what like how do I do this? Do I keep doing it with personal training? Am I just being like, selfish? Or am I not content with the life that I have is is not enough? And it's like, well, no, it's not that like I can feel the discomfort in myself and that my soul wants to grow. It wants to grow. I've learned the lessons and the challenges and develop my skills to get to this point. But now it's time for me to grow some more and really see who I can become in this next chapter. And I sat with this for like two weeks and nothing I kept struggling with like, what is this idea? Like? How am I going to do I write a book? Do I start a YouTube channel like I don't even know. And when the idea came to me to start this protein pancake line, it was like so for me, it was so crystal clear. Like I was sitting in my kitchen, I was making my protein pancakes for breakfast. And like in the middle of making them it was just like something in me lit up. And I was like, Oh my god, I wonder if I could take this package my recipe, turn it into a product and sell it to other people. And I just kind of like sat with this for myself for a while. In the meantime, I'm also like googling and researching, like, how to start your own supplement line, how to start your own online business. How do you take a recipe and turn it into a product. I mean, I spent hours figuring this out and really like looking at it from every angle. And this is where my highly analytical mind comes in. And then finally, when I felt like alright, there's enough people in the world who have done this. I may not know how to do this, but I know that I can do it and I know that I can figure it out. And I made the decision internally like I'm taking this protein pancake recipe, I'm going to friggin turn this into something, and it's going to be super successful. Somehow, it's gut intuition, I just knew it was going to be something with no proof. Now, here's what happened. I had that I spent weeks establishing the belief in myself, seeing it, believing it, I read stories about other people who had done similar things, seeing how possible it was. And at the time, I had a business coach who had done digital products in the fitness world. So ebooks and like online coaching, and I went to him, mind you, I'm paying this guy a lot of money to help me build a business. And I didn't know what that business was going to be, until this point, and I went to him, I sent him an email. And I was like, Hey, I have this idea. I know exactly what I want to do. I know it's going to be huge. Like, I can just feel it in my gut, I know it's going to be something, I have no idea how to find a manufacturer or fulfillment or packaging, or how to get a nutrition label. I don't know how to do any of this. So as my coach, how do I do this? Like, do you know anybody in the manufacturing space or the fulfillment space, and I was so excited and felt so clear. Alright, I'm done personal training. This is what's next I had made the decision. So this is that, should I give up? Or should I level up? Well, it was both. I should let go of the personal training. And now it's time to grow. And by leveling up, it challenged me to learn this new way of doing things. I sent it just like so ready for him to be like, Oh my god, Ashley, that is awesome. I am so proud of you like good job. Here's all the answers, whatever. No, the response that I got back was Ashley, this is a terrible idea. This will never work. You should not do this. I'm telling you, this is going to be a headache and not a path that you want to go down. I read that email, I cried. Because I could not believe somebody that I held such high esteem for that I was paying to be there to coach me and encouraged me. didn't believe in me. However, I still believed in this process. And I still believed in the product and the idea. So about a week later, I sent him an email back. Well, actually, I then cried my dad, or called my dad cried to him about it called my brother. cried everybody I knew just because I was like, Oh my god, I can't believe he would say this, like How could you do this? Totally defeat my ideas and just crush my dreams. And then it motivated me. I fired him as a business coach A week later, I was like, You know what, even if nobody believes in me, this feels right. I don't know why. And it makes no sense. But it feels right. And I was making bags of pancakes out of my apartment. I was doing everything ordering ingredients. I'm shipping stuff out with the local post office every day, I was taking u haul boxes of orders, shipping them to people all over the country making social media posts reaching out to influencers talking to anybody that I could to get this product out there.

All In the meantime, feeling totally nuts, because when I would talk to people about it, the response that I would get was almost like, oh, Haha, yeah, that's, that's really cute. Like you keep doing that pancake thing. And it required so much of checking in having the belief in myself holding on to the vision and the why of what was important and what felt right to me to keep the momentum going forward.

And here's the thing is when you listen to your gut, and you listen to your own intuition of which path to take, it will always help you and validate you and support you. And part of that process was as I continued down this, the pieces just naturally came together the right people showed up at the right time to help me find my first manufacturer. I ended up finding new friends in new relationships with people who supported this dream. They saw the vision, and they came along in my life and helped me I ended up finding a lot of different things that came together so easily. All because I continue to move forward and trust my gut. This is also part of the process of getting on Shark Tank. And a lot of the things that have just transpired from all of that is just holding on to that. And I cannot tell you how many times I reached out trying to get sales and to get into different businesses to work with different ambassadors and I constantly got rejected. However, the belief in myself was stronger than whether other people believed in it or not. And that was the thing that was most valuable. So I'm using this entire story as an example. Because whatever venture you choose in life, whether it is a business or a career or the love of your life or living in the place of your dreams. You are going to face resistance, and you are going to have a lot of people who disagree with you. And this is where you have to have your volume turned up so loud in your gut to what feels right to you. And when you listen to that you will be validated, you will be supported. And the right people will come into your life at the right time to help move you down that path.

Now, when you don't listen, and you have your volume turned down low, you will face so much external resistance. And you won't have the support and the natural flow of life that you would have if you did listen. And this is kind of what I was saying, where if you don't listen, like life will make it so uncomfortable for you that you have no choice but to grow. Which is why it's important. I mean, ultimately, like we want to take the path of least resistance at least I do not. And that doesn't mean that you don't have resistance, it doesn't mean that it's still freakin hard work sometimes. And it requires a lot of change in communication and figuring things out and asking questions, it does not mean that you don't have that. It's just when you have that. It's almost the feeling where you're like, yeah, it's work. But it doesn't even feel like work. Because I'm moving in the direction that I want to go. It just feels like part of the process. It's like buying a house like Yeah, you got to fill out all the paperwork, but you're buying the house of your dreams. So you don't care about the paperwork. That's more of kind of the growth and the challenges you experienced when you do listen to your gut.

Now, we're totally going to flip sides here and talk about when it is time for you to quit. And when it is time for you to give up. There's a lot of people that talk about how like, just keep going just keep pushing, just keep trying. And yes, this is applicable when your gut is also telling you that however, I think a lot of times, we do go through periods and seasons where things have ran their course. And it is time for you to give up and quit. It's almost I actually was talking to a friend recently about this giving her the analogy that sometimes the thing we hold on to is actually the thing that's weighing us down, and this was in regards to a relationship. And I told her whenever I'm in a situation where I've had a hard time letting go of a friendship or something that is very near and dear to me- Like I can feel it in my gut, even though everybody else is like, Are you sure? What if you give up too soon, like what if you would have tried just a little bit harder. And that I mean, that's so hard, because it does make you wonder. And still this goes back to like, you just got to get to the place in yourself, like you got to make the internal decision one way or the other. And then it doesn't matter what anybody else says. But so in this situation with this relationship, I said, here's kind of how I see it is, let's say you're in water, you're in water, you have a weighted ball and a chain around your ankle. And it's sinking to the bottom of this water. And you're trying so hard to just float you used to be able to float, or used to float in water used to be able to swim to the top, it was super easy. And it was so much fun. Like why am I trying so hard? And I'm not going anywhere? It's like, well, also because like you're trying to hang on to something that's meant to be let go of and so you have this chain around your ankle. And I'm By the way, I am not referring to like marriage when people talk about ball and chain. This just happened to be the analogy. I said, then when this thing that you're not wanting to quit on because of whatever reason, or you don't want to give up on you finally, do you realize that there's no lock on this chain and you let it go, then you don't even have to try and you start floating to the top. You don't even have to try to swim, you're naturally going to start floating and getting higher and moving to the top. But the thing you're holding on to so desperately is also the thing that's holding you back and keeping you from being who you came here to be. There's a lot of emotional things that go into quitting and giving up too. I mean, I've had plenty of times that it's so it's all fear based.

First of all, it's all fear based when you don't want to let go is because you're so scared that what you're letting go of might be better than what you're moving into. You're scared that the job or the career or the business that you had, might be the best you've ever had. And it's never going to get any better than that or the relationship Whatever it is, you're scared, or you're scared to be alone, or you're scared to be lost, or you're scared to be unglued, all of it comes from a place of fear. And in regards to the friendship in the relationship, but I had told her is, number one, your life is proof that you will never be alone forever. That's just proof. Look at the history of your life, there's your proof, let it go move on, so that the new people to comment can come in. And I said, it's kind of like, with all this COVID stuff, when you're standing out line a store, the faster somebody exits the store, the sooner somebody new can come in to same thing with relationships. And it's the same thing for the person or the thing that you're letting go of, the faster you let go. The sooner somebody that matches, their vibration can come in and fill that space. And the sooner somebody can come in, that matches, your vibration can fill that space. But if nobody's letting go, it can't happen. Where we ultimately really want to feel is we're like, no, how about you first? Show me the stuff that's coming in, then when I feel safe, then I'll let go and move on. And that's not the way it works. That's the whole like, walking by blind faith that I talked about in the other episodes like, No, no, no, it's not how life works. You got to trust in your own belief and your own vision, and then you let go moving towards that vision. And then life brings you all those other things and those people that are in alignment with you.

This brings me to another point in who you surround yourself with? Do you surround yourself with people who you actually choose? Based on that they're honest, they're going to tell you the truth? Are they people that when you are either being an asshole or selling yourself short or undermining yourself, if they're gonna be like, Hey, you know what, actually, I've been listening to you complain about this for like three years? Do you just want to complain? Or do you actually want to do something about this? Are those the people you have? Because a lot of times your environment is going to match the people that you keep in your close inner circle. Nobody likes to hear that nobody wants to change people. They've had lifelong relationships and friendships with. However, if you see it from the perspective of choosing people, based on who you want to become and what you want to do, it's a lot easier. And this becomes a theme battle happening your entire life, you choose things based on this idea of yourself that you want to become so if you're feeling stuck, or you feel confused, and you're not sure of well, do I quit? Or do I give up? Or do I level up? Take a look at who you have around yourself in your life? Are they people that are consistently growing and encouraging you to grow? Or are the people that just happen to be your friends, because they just happen to be in your environment, you happen to go to the same grocery store or the same gym or the same church, you don't really have the same ambitions or the same mindset or goals in life. It's just convenient. So do you choose people based on convenience? Or do you choose people based on your growth, because it's a lot easier to get clear on things to do in your life when you have people who encouraged your growth, because when you face situations of deciding whether to give up on something or level up, and you're surrounded by people who want to help you grow, when you go to them, the feedback you're gonna get is you know what? You already know the answer.

So my advice to you would be to take some space, sit with yourself, check in, maybe focus more on your meditations and journaling or read some inspirational books. And then you'll get clear on what you want to do. Or the people that are just going to be honest with you of like, you know, you've been talking about how unhappy you are for a really long time, it sounds like this has ran its course. And maybe it's time for you to start a new chapter to what it sounds like. However, check in with yourself. You want people who encourage you to always listen to your own gut and they don't have their own motives in what they want you to do with your life. So check in on that too. Is it time for a total I mean, let's be honest, a lot of people are dealing with this is a time for a total cleanup and clear out for you. And that's what you're scared of. Because if so I can say. And you can say to some of the best things that ever happened to you and to me, are the cleanup and clear outs. It sucks when you're going through it. But look at how much you grow afterwards. And looking back. It's almost like you don't even recognize the person who that was because it no longer fits anymore. So whatever area or situation you're in in life and you're faced with the decision, is it time for me to quit and give up? Or is it time for me to grow and really do what I need to do to become The person that I need to become in order to have the life and the things that I want, I hope that you use these tools.

And just to kind of recap, the first question, at the very beginning, is the pain to stay greater than the pain you would feel if you left? If so, it's time to go. Also, check in and turn down the volume on everybody else and turn up your own volume. Take a look at your external circle and who you're surrounding yourself with. Spend time in meditation in mindset practices in a journal and get clear on the life that you want for yourself. And then you're going to know the answer to that question. I always use the indicator, if it's time for me to grow, does it excite me and scare me, most of the time, when it's time for me to grow, it scares the hell out of me, and I hate it. Because the second that I feel that I'm like, Oh, God, I know that I have to do this. Because if I don't do this, I would totally be denying myself. But I also know that I'm about to feel so completely vulnerable, and scared, and clueless and lost. And like I'm starting all over with something. But I also know that that kind of feeling and that excitement is what really lights me up in life. And I mean, there's a opportunity I have right now that kind of makes me feel that way. And it's like, Oh, God, like, I know nothing about any of this. And I totally don't know, a single person that does this, and I have no background or experience in this would make me feel so completely, utterly lost. But I also know it would require so much growth, and for me to step up and be more of the leader that I want to aspire to be. And I would have to change who I surround myself with. And I would have to change everything. But that's what I want in life I want to grow, I want to learn, I want to be challenged. And that's kind of how it goes in these kinds of situations, especially relationships to when the last when's the last time, you did something that scared you. And I don't mean being an idiot, and like driving your car 200 miles an hour down like a busy road, I'm talking about when is the last time doing something in your day to day life actually scared you because it would require you to be so uncomfortable, that would be a huge challenge that I would give to you. And I used to do this with business coaching entrepreneurs, I would have them part of the practice that we would go through and developing the skills of being an entrepreneur and what it takes with resiliency, having persistence and self belief and self assurance and competence. And all that is there's a process of each day, come up with three things that would make you feel super awkward and uncomfortable. Ask somebody out that you normally like feel so out of your league, just do it calls a cold call somebody and talk to them about a business that you have that doesn't even exist in sound like a total idiot. Just do it. Just do it with no real expectation of the outcome. Because what it does is it helps you build up the muscle of being uncomfortable, but also realizing that hey, being uncomfortable, didn't totally kill you, you're still alive, being uncomfortable, didn't actually do anything to you, other than maybe temporarily, your ego or self esteem was a little crushed. And actually, it was kind of invigorating and exciting. Because you got off autopilot and quit going through the motions and you actually did things that helped you grow and step outside yourself.

So do that one day this week, just something totally, you're like, oh, man, my heart's beating, I'm super nervous, my palms are sweaty, I have no idea what's gonna happen with this. And then after you do it, and maybe cry about it, if you did experience some rejection, then you realize it's not that big of a deal. And the reason why this kind of challenge in practice is so important, is because what it does is you end up feeling the rejection and the discomfort that you fear. And when you feel it, and you experience it and you realize it's not that bad. It takes away the fear. And when you've developed the skill to be able to do that. You now aren't so afraid to take risks in life. Yes, there are risk. Yes, you could go for everything and totally fall in your face and have to start from scratch. That is a very real possibility. But if you don't, you're going to spend the rest of your life wondering what if, and I talked about this in the whole episode on anxiety of how anxiety can be a misuse of imagination, and your creative thinking. It's kind of the same thing with this fear and with comfort is the thing that keeps us within our comfort zone is sometimes we let the fear become so big and overwhelming of what could happen that we forget we have the power to also imagine all the incredible things that could happen if it went right.

I hope you enjoyed this podcast episode and it inspired you along with providing you with tools for clarity on which direction to go when you are faced with a decision or at a crossroads in your life.

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Here's to Creating a Body & Life You Love,

Ashley Drummonds