We should all strive to be more kind to others because sometimes someone being kind to us really does make all the difference. And sometimes we don’t even realize how much we needed those kind words until we hear them.

A few years ago, I literally had a complete meltdown in my car. And it was all because a stranger had been kind to me. I know – it sounds crazy, right? But I realize the reason why I was so emotional about it was because I felt such an incredible lack of basic kindness in my closest relationships. I had become so isolated from others, that I was surrounded by toxicity. And it took someone else’s random act of kindness to remind me that our world is full of light and kindness. I just had to start looking in the right places. And start making the tough changes I needed to make in my own life.

I started challenging some of the beliefs I had about myself. These were some of the ways I felt:

• I give people the benefit of the doubt too much or too many second chances.
• I worry about offending my partner if I stand up for myself.
• I have a hard time recognizing when I am being disrespected. Sometimes it takes someone else pointing it out to me.
• When someone hurts me, instead of setting a boundary with them, I feel like I need to prove my worthiness and why they should value me more.
• When someone hurts me, I need them validate me and my feelings by admitting that they were wrong or disrespectful.
• I don’t even know what respect feels like in a relationship.
• I feel guilty when setting boundaries and worry that I am being unfair. Sometimes I even convince myself that by setting the boundary, I am overreacting.
• I would rather put up with shitty treatment than be alone.

I began to question why I feel this way about my relationships and myself. Just noticing how often these beliefs were reflected in my interactions with others was eye opening. Then I slowly began to challenge my own thinking. I started talking to myself as if I was talking to a friend. What would I tell a friend if they told me that they were worried about offending their partner if they stood up for themselves? Then I began to apply the advice I would give someone else to myself.

What beliefs do you have about yourself that are keeping you in a toxic situation?

We all want that one person who we know will be loyal to us until the end. Some of the greatest stories in pop culture highlight this bond, like Batman and Robin. Wall-E and Eva. Frodo and Sam. Doc and Marty. Sherlock and Watson. Kirk and Spock. Snoopy and Woodstock. Loyal friends, either riding shotgun or getting the other out of a sticky situation.

All of the loyal characters above embodied not only loyalty, but honesty. They could be trusted because they were honest. Always. Whether the other liked it or not. 

When looking at our own lives, we need to be honest with ourselves. Is the person who we want to be loyal to us, honest with us? Do they tell us what we need to hear, even if it isn’t what we want to hear? Are they honest about who they are and their own intentions? Are they trustworthy? Do they possess integrity? Have they shown us in the past that they have our backs?

We all deserve to have our Robin or Sam. We just need to be able to discern who can actually give us what we seek.

We all have creative narratives as to why our lives are the way they are. We rationalize our behaviors and thoughts so that they fit our story – or what we believe about ourselves or our situation. The problem is that by creating all these little narratives, we end up creating limiting beliefs about ourselves and stay stuck there.

Let’s look at it like this. How does your bullshit story work for you? What do you get out of it? Perhaps by telling yourself all the reasons why you can’t do something, you never put yourself in the situation to even try so you don’t have to experience rejection or failure. Or maybe it allows you to not have to take responsibility for yourself or where your life is. Your bullshit story keeps you shackled and holds you hostage – and it doesn’t have to.

Here are five steps you can take to eliminate limiting beliefs you have about yourself:

1.) Name the belief. Be brutally honest with yourself about what you really believe about yourself or a situation. Say you struggle with believing that you deserve a healthy relationship. Write it down and expose it.

2.) Acknowledge your feelings about the belief. Own it. Why do you believe you aren’t worthy of a healthy relationship? What causes you to believe that about yourself? Write it down and expose that, too.

3.) Be gentle with yourself. So many of us have limiting beliefs about ourselves. Chances are, those beliefs came from a place that hurt us, or caused us to cast doubt on ourselves. Show compassion towards yourself about your experience.

4.) Understand the byproducts of these beliefs. Once you started telling yourself you didn’t deserve to be in a healthy relationship, what happened? How were you affected? What other narratives were added to your bullshit story that confirmed this belief?

5.) Rewrite your story. How does your story look if you do believe you are deserving of a healthy relationship? Rewrite yourself as the hero who has overcome the limiting belief. Make that your new narrative. For example, you can say to yourself, “For years I didn’t believe that I deserved a great relationship. But I know who I am now and what I deserve. So I won’t be settling for less anymore.”

What bullshit story do you keep telling yourself?

Sometimes we get so focused on a specific outcome that we try to force things to fit when they don’t. We get tunnel vision and lose sight of other opportunities that are there for us because we are so singularly focused.

When a door doesn’t open, it wasn’t meant for you. It’s not your door. And as much as you want it to be, there is one that is uniquely suited for you down the road. We must trust the process and know that the universe is unfolding as it should.

So how can we trust the process when that feels impossible? Here are some things to remember along your journey:

• Rejection is just redirection and experience.
• Our journey teaches us more than our destination.
• We always end up where we need to be, right when we are meant to be there.
• Be brave and let go. Allow the universe to reveal its beautiful plan for you.
• Remember that life isn’t happening to you, it’s happening for you.
• There’s a reason for closed doors, unanswered prayers and blocked roads. If your plans aren’t working out right now, it’s because there are better things waiting for you.
• Doors will open for you when you least expect it.
• Be open to the world and all its possibilities. You never know when an opportunity will show up.
• Not getting what you want can be a blessing.
• You’ve overcome challenges before.
• There is always something to be thankful for.

The good news is we will have many doors that open for us in our lifetime. Some will be great experiences, and some will be our teachers. What is important is our journey, what we learn and what we give to others along the way.

We often search for validation externally, because we can see it. When we tell someone something and they validate our experience, we feel it and see evidence that we are supported. And we need that kind of kinship and connection to others. But sometimes we rely too heavily on external validation and search for it where we can only give it to ourselves.

If you’ve been reading my posts for a while, you know that I often pivot to the issues with social media when it comes to self-esteem.  As a culture, we have become enmeshed with posting our “highlight reel” and curated life online. It’s fun to post things online, but far too many of us are preoccupied with likes and comments because we crave that external confirmation that we are good enough.

Remember that if you live for people’s acceptance, you will die from their rejection. The only approval and validation you need is from yourself. 

If you are struggling with feeling good enough, or loving yourself, here are some things to remember:

• Nothing outside of you can ever take away how you feel about yourself.
• Being real and authentic with yourself, flaws and all – the good, the bad and the ugly and accepting it is the solid foundation of building self-worth.
• Be gentle with yourself. If you spoke to a friend the way you speak to yourself, what would they say?
• Eliminate negative self-talk and focus on positive affirmations.
• Always be improving yourself for you. What are you good at? What are you interested in?
• What other people think of you is none of your business.
• There is only one “you”. You have something that only you can give to this world.
• You are unshakeable and incredibly resourceful.
• When you begin to love yourself, you will tolerate less nonsense.
• Your value doesn’t decrease based on someone’s inability to see your worth.
• You owe yourself the love that you give so freely to other people.
• Stop hating the experiences that shaped you.
• The same light you see shining in others is in you, too.

It is okay to let go of people, places and things you have outgrown. It isn’t anything personal against them. We are all on our own journeys and our paths will meander to different places at different times. Sometimes those who are in our life are only meant to be there for a certain period of time.

Think of growth in a potted plant. When plants outgrow their container, they become root bound. Their roots grow in circles around the container, because it has nowhere else to go. The roots start to look like a woven fabric around the edges of the soil. The plant also stops growing because it needs more space to flourish. When this happens, we don’t just leave the plant in the pot and expect it to grow. We move it to a large pot so it can realize its full potential.

You have the right to stop spending time with people who you no longer connect with. You have the right to leave a relationship that no longer brings you joy. You have the right to leave a job you no longer feel excited about.

You have the right to grow and become the best version of yourself. And many times, that will require you to take the chance and change your environment.

What places have you shrunk yourself into? What have you outgrown? What can you start doing today to flourish and become more?

Boundaries are the limits that you set with yourself and the people in your life as to how they can treat you and behave around you. They come from your own personal values, beliefs, perspectives, opinions and life experiences. It requires understanding how to separate your own needs from the needs of others and prioritizing them.

Many of us avoid setting boundaries with others because we worry that if we do, we will be abandoned. This can be a deep-rooted fear that was taught to us in our childhood. And as children, we needed belonging and acceptance. So not setting boundaries was a way for us to survive.

We never learned how to create boundaries, so we try to navigate through life without them. We tend to believe that other people’s needs, and feelings should come first. We worry that setting a boundary may jeopardize the relationship. And for many of us, we struggle with understanding what we really feel and want. It’s hard to set boundaries when we can’t identify what we are feeling.

One way to start contemplating what kind of boundaries you want to have is to think about what your limits are. Identify your physical, emotional, mental and spiritual limits. Think about what you can accept and tolerate. Knowing what makes you feel uncomfortable, stressed or resentful are great guidelines to help you define your boundaries.

If you’re interested in reading more about personal boundaries, Mark Manson has a fantastic article all about it that you can find here.

It is the small things you do consistently that make the biggest change in your life. Many of us start working on a goal with major intensity and excitement. But more often than not, that kind of intensity is unsustainable.

We often overlook making the small changes because we are motivated and want to make drastic changes. We prize those dramatic changes more than the small ones because we see them as more valuable. But are they?

Let’s say you want to radically change your life and lose a significant amount of weight. Your success is going to be found in what you do every day. What you eat, your physical activity, the quality of your sleep, your hydration level, etc. The beautiful part of making the small daily changes, is that if you have a bad day and make bad food choices, it is literally just one day that got messed up. You can acknowledge that you had a bad day, accept it and continue to make choices that support your goals. Just like one day of eating healthy and exercising isn’t going to cause you to lose a lot of weight immediately, one day of making bad food choices isn’t going to derail all your progress.

Consistency will always beat short term intensity.

What changes do you need to make to your daily routine?