8 tips to be your best self
In this extract from her book You Are a Badass life coach Jen Sincero offers tips on pushing past your fears to realise your potential
SHE went from being basically broke with few lucrative prospects to becoming a multimillionaire life coach and author. So when Jen Sincero dishes advice, people tend to listen. The bestselling author recently went on a book tour to promote her second book, You Are a Badass at Making Money. But her first offering, You Are a Badass, is still her most popular book and often features on bestseller lists.
It’s the book that changed the 53-yearold’s life when it was published in 2013 – and the lives of the hundreds of thousands around the world who’ve read it.
While she was doing an interview with The Guardian at a restaurant earlier this year a former client came over to her table. “Because of you my business has been extraordinarily rewarding and my life has changed,” he told Jen.
Her response? “It’s so nice to see people take information and go kick ass.”
Here’s an extract from You Are a Badass that could change your life for the better.
I’M ASSUMING if you’re reading this there are some areas of your life that aren’t looking so good. And that you know it could be looking a whole lot better. This is about getting mighty clear about what makes you happy and what makes you feel the most alive, and then creating it instead of pretending you can’t have it. Or that you don’t deserve it. Or that you’re a greedy egomaniacal fathead for wanting more than you already have.
All you need to do is make one simple shift: you need to go from wanting to change your life to deciding to change your life.
You’re going to have to push past your fears, fail over and over again and make a habit of doing things you’re not so comfy doing.
You’re going to have to let go of old, limiting beliefs and cling to your decision to create the life you desire like your life depends on it. Because guess what? Your life does depend on it. As challenging as this may sound, it’s nowhere near as brutal as waking up in the middle of the night feeling like someone parked a car on your chest, crushed under the realisation that your life is zooming by and you have yet to start living it in a way that has any real meaning to you. You may have heard stories about people who had these major breakthroughs when the s**t really hit the fan – they found a lump or got their electricity turned off or were moments away from having sex with strangers or buying drugs when suddenly they woke up, transformed. But you don’t have to wait until you hit rock bottom to start crawling out of your hole. All you have to do is make the decision. And you can make it right now.
‘You need to go from wanting to change your life to deciding to change your life’
LEARN TO LOVE YOURSELF AGAIN
We’re born knowing how to trust our instincts, how to breathe deeply, how to eat only when we’re hungry, how to not care about what anyone thinks of our singing voices, dance moves or hairdos.
We know how to play, create and love without holding back. As we grow and learn from the people around us we replace many of these primal understandings with negative false beliefs, fear, shame and self-doubt.
Then we wind up in emotional and physical pain. Then we either numb our pain with drugs, sex, booze, TV, Cheetos, etc – or we settle for mediocrity.
Self-love, the simplest yet most powerful thing ever, flies right out the window when we start taking in outside information. I’m not talking about conceit or narcissism because those things also come from fear and a lack of self-love.
I’m talking about a deep connection with our highest selves and an unshakable ability to forgive our lowest.
I’m talking about loving ourselves enough to let go of guilt, resentment and criticism and embrace compassion, joy and gratitude.
When we’re happy and in love with ourselves we can’t be bothered with the bulls**t (our own or other people’s).
Here are some of the best ways to win yourself over again. 1 CHERISH HOW SPECIAL YOU ARE There will never be anyone exactly like you. You were given special gifts and talents to share with the world. You have a way of being in the world and a perspective that’s unique to you. 2 DROWN IN AFFIRMATIONS Affirmations work. You don’t need to buy a special rainbow journal with a lock on it to write them down in, but if you want to turn the ship around you need to rewire your brain and train it to think differently. And this is what affirmations can do for you. Figure out which affirmations you need to hear the most and repeat them all day long in your head. Write them on Post- it notes and stick them around your house, on your mirrors, in your refrigerator, in your car. Pick one or two that work for you and pummel yourself with them: I deserve and receive massive amounts of love every moment of every day. I’m brilliant, bright and beautiful. I love how tall I am and I love the size of my ass. Or whatever. If none of these work, come up with some that don’t make you gag but that strike a nerve with you. The more emotion you feel around what you’re saying, the more power it will have to bring about positive change. 3 DO THINGS YOU LOVE When you constantly deny yourself the people, food, things and experiences that make you feel the most alive, that sends a pretty lousy message home.
Look at your life and see where you’re letting yourself down. If you hear yourself saying things like, “I love going out to see live music! I can’t remember the last time I did it,” make time.
We’re all busy but it’s the people who make enjoying their lives a priority who, um, enjoy their lives.
Right now there are thousands of people all over the world at yoga retreats overlooking the ocean, dancing their asses off at outdoor music festivals or whooping it up on the Disney Cruise of their dreams.
Make a conscious effort to increase your joy in whatever capacity you can. It can be anything from spending a weekday afternoon with a friend to quitting your hateful job. It’s about being proactive about creating a life you love instead of meekly living the one you think you’re stuck with. 4 FIND A REPLACEMENT We’ve got so used to our negative knee-jerk reactions to ourselves that we never think to question them – we simply take them as the truth.
But once we become aware of our thought patterns and behaviours we can
‘You aren’t a better person for feeling guilty or bad about yourself, just a sadder one’
consciously change them. What runs through your mind when you look in the mirror? What do you think and feel when you walk up to a group of really good-looking, successful people? Or when you get dumped by someone who’s totally awesome? Or when you walk around all day with your fly open? Or when you snap at someone who didn’t quite deserve it?
Notice the words that run through your mind when you’re being the most awful to yourself and come up with a new-andimproved response. For example, if every time you look in the mirror your first thought is “yikes”, make a conscious effort to change it to “Hi, gorgeous!”
Don’t spend your life clinging to the insulting decisions you’ve made about yourself. Instead, make the conscious choice to replace them with new and improved ones. 5 DITCH THE SELF-DEPRECATING HUMOUR If you fall back on making fun of yourself every hour on the hour, not only are you basically begging people to think you’re a loser, you’re begging yourself to think you’re a loser.
It’s like hitting yourself over and over with a crowbar. Why on earth would you do that to your awesome self?
What you tell yourself on a daily basis is more powerful than you know. Seemingly harmless jokes, over time, turn into destructive beliefs.
Our thoughts become our words, our words become our beliefs, our beliefs become our actions, our actions become our habits and our habits become our realities.
So if your favourite joke is that you couldn’t get a date if you demanded one at gunpoint perhaps you should come up with a new one-liner. 6 LET THE LOVE IN Receive compliments gracefully instead of countering with a disclaimer such as, “Oh, this ratty old thing?” Try this instead, “Thank you.” Period.
Take care of your body, too. Say nice things about your body, dress it up and take it out. Give it hot sex, luxurious baths and massages. Move it, stretch it, nourish it, hydrate it, pay attention to it.
The better our bodies feel, the happier and more productive we are. 7 DON’T COMPARE YOURSELF WITH OTHERS Have you ever done something that you’re so proud of and feel all on top of the world about – until you see that someone else has done something similar that, in your mind, is better, and all of a sudden you feel sad?
Comparison is the fastest way to take all the fun out of life.
It’s none of your business what other people are doing. All that matters is that you’re enjoying yourself and pleased with what you’re creating. 8 FORGIVE YOURSELF (THIS ONE IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT) Everyone is born with the ability to make mistakes. Screwing up isn’t your
special skill. Get over it. Dragging around guilt and self-criticism is beyond unhealthy and is utterly pointless, not to mention boring.
You aren’t a better person for feeling guilty or bad about yourself, just a sadder one. Get clear on this one truth: guilt, shame and self-criticism are some of the most destructive forces in your life, which is why forgiving yourself is one of the most powerful.
Here’s an excellent way to do it: think of a specific thing you did that you feel badly about.
Repeat the following over and over while thinking of it and really feel what you’re saying to yourself: holding on to my bad feelings about this is doing nothing but harming me, and everyone else, and preventing me from enjoying my life fully. I’m an awesome person. I choose to enjoy my life. I choose to let this go.
Repeat this until you feel a sense of freedom and lightness around your issue.