312. You Don’t Need More Self-Improvement

Hey, I'm Amanda Hess.

I'm a certified life coach.

But what you need to know is I'm a sensitive woman just like you, and I'm going to help you understand yourself better so that you can approach your life differently and feel really good about it.

Let's go.

Hey, my friend.

Okay, today's episode is going to be short and to the point, but I have an analogy for you that I think when you hear, it will really change the way that you approach what's going on in your life.

So it's spring, and if you're listening to this in real time, it's May, and we are all clearing out our gardens, right?

If you have a yard, if you're a gardener, you've pulled all the dead things out of your garden.

It's something that we do in spring.

And then we also have a garden where if we pull out all the weeds and we pull out all the dead stuff, there's all this beautiful black dirt, right?

And there might be some perennials in there that have been planted before and there might not be.

But there's one thing that I know about planting a garden, and it's important.

If you want flowers in your garden and not weeds, you need to plant flowers.

This is always true.

And if you don't plant flowers, what you're going to be doing is you're going to be perpetually weeding and you're not going to have any of the beautiful flowers that you want to have in your garden.

And this is very true when it comes to your mind and your life to.

Too often, what I see happening is people get involved in self help.

People start going to therapy, they might start down the road of coaching.

They are doing different things.

But what happens is they start identifying all the things that are wrong with them, all the things that are wrong with their lives, all the things that are wrong with their partner, with their children, with their friendships, with their job.

And inevitably, there are so many weeds.

And what I see is so many people putting so much time and energy into pulling the weeds.

And the way that I look at this differently is I think we have to spend way more time planting flowers.

So when somebody says to me, amanda, what's the difference?

What's the difference between therapy and coaching?

I'm like, this is one of the big differences that I see with respect to what I do compared to what I see other people doing.

Yes, we do need to pull weeds.

That is required.

If you have a garden full of weeds, you are going to have a hard time planting any flowers, there's no room for them.

So chances are, if there are things circumstantially going on in your life that are very challenging or very difficult, 100%, we need to address some of that.

No doubt.

But that doesn't mean that at the same time we're not planting flowers.

Because if you think about it like if I think about my yard, right, I have multiple gardens, gardens, I have flower pots.

If I only spend an hour a day weeding and I weed the weeds that are in those spaces and I never do any planting, I could spend my whole time weeding and never plant a single flower.

And this is how I see this happening for the people that I help.

Right?

We want to start understanding how to plant flowers.

Now.

The cool thing about this is that this can look a lot of different ways.

On one hand, it can look like your nervous system regulation.

And you might say to me, well, Amanda, isn't that carrying a problem?

And I'm going to tell you, not really.

A lot of self help experts, psychologists, therapists, even coaches really believe in meditation.

I think meditation is a fine tool, but I approach it differently.

I approach it differently.

It can be meditative.

Taking a couple of deep breaths in your bathroom, looking at yourself in the eyes and going, we're safe, we're okay.

We don't have to rush.

That is meditative.

That is mindfulness.

Taking a deep cleansing breath just for the feeling of it is pleasurable.

And what I really see is that so many of the women that I help are so overburdened, so over taxed, continuously taking care of everything and everyone all the time.

They have a hundred plates spinning and they don't want to drop any of them.

And they're so focused that their care and attention for themselves has completely disappeared.

And the reality is that if we don't stop and take a beat and change how we do this, we are on a one way ticket to burnout, basically.

A lot of times what I hear women saying is, how do I add more arms so I can hold more plates instead of going, how do I change how I do this?

So even though I'm mixing analogies here, and I sometimes do that, I still want to go back to the garden because we want a beautiful, fulfilling, amazing life.

So we don't want to be pulling weeds and we don't want to be adding more arms to spin more plates.

We don't want that.

Because that doesn't create beauty, that doesn't create pleasure, that doesn't create happiness, that doesn't create fulfillment.

What does?

Well, regulating your nervous system with very simple, pleasurable things is incredibly impactful because it compounds over time.

I was reading a post I think she's called the New York Therapist or something like that.

I love her account.

I love what she posts.

But she had posted on there asking what people do for mindfulness or nervous system regulation outside of just, you know, sort of what we think of.

And I let her know that figure skating is one of my biggest regulators.

Why?

Because, for one thing, it's pleasurable.

I enjoy it, I'm passionate about it.

It's something that I can do that requires all of my brain.

It's artistic, it's beautiful, it's difficult, it's technical, it's physical.

It hits all of those spots.

And because of that, it's a really powerful regulator.

One of the things that I've talked about on this podcast before is the analogy of the teeter totter when it comes to nervous system regulation and how so many of us spend so much time trying to take the things off the bottom of the teeter totter.

Heavy.

And we don't spend enough time adding things and processes and experiences to the other side of the teeter totter to create balance.

You can have a beautiful flowering garden and there can still be some weeds in it.

In fact, I just can't help but think of my neighbor's garden, right?

Because she's an expert landscaper.

She does landscaping for our city, right.

And she runs one of the departments there.

And what I notice is she has so many perennials.

She has so many perennials.

And if you don't know what a perennial is because you're not a gardener, it's just a plant that comes back every year.

She has so many perennials that she doesn't need to do a lot in that garden.

She's planted these flowers really strategically, purposefully, so that when she weeds and the plants come in, the plants take up so much space that there's not enough.

There's not a lot of room for weeds.

So this happens already.

Already her gardens are full.

And Rob, your brain can be like that.

But we have to learn how to plant flowers.

So what are flowers?

Well, nervous system regulation, pleasure going and really pleasing your senses, pleasing your soul, allowing yourself to rest, reset, ground.

Those are flowers, right?

When I look at flowers, I'm really looking at, what are you doing that's enjoyable?

What are you doing that's pleasurable?

What are you doing that you're passionate about?

What are you doing just because it's feels good for you to do it.

I was coaching one of my clients last week, and we were talking about their relationship, and I was talking to them about using love in their relationship, unconditional love, to drive change.

Because the partner wasn't doing what my client wanted them to do.

And this is so common.

This happens in so many areas in our life that we're just so focused on what's not working.

And what I suggested to them was, hey, you could just decide to unconditionally love your partner and you could look for ways to love them, and it will change everything.

And you know what?

Changed a lot.

The partner was then able to show up and do things for my client without being asked.

There was time spent together that was enjoyable just because there was a coming together.

Why?

Because we planted more flowers.

It can be adding kindness.

I was just listening to an audiobook where they were talking about how kindness actually creates serotonin in your brain.

Not just receiving kindness, but actually giving kindness.

And here's the extra thing that was so fascinating.

Also, watching somebody else be kind lights up the same part of the brain creates serotonin.

This is fascinating because what it tells you is that you can plant flowers just by being kind.

Being kind to yourself, being kind to other people, letting other people experience it, letting other people witness it.

The truth of the matter is that we spend too much time weeding and not enough time planting flowers.

And when we do that, we inevitably create a lot of stuff we don't want.

Not on purpose, but because the way that our brain just works.

If we set our brain to the dial of look for what's wrong, it will find everything.

It will find everything that's wrong, and it will just keep adding and another thing, and another thing, and this too.

And don't forget about that.

It's just the way that we work.

It's our survival, brain in action.

But that doesn't mean it has to stay like that.

We have access to it.

So even though you might feel like, I'm doing everything for everybody and nobody sees me and nobody cares about me, this isn't about doing okay.

This is about planting more flowers.

So if you feel overrun, it's time to do less.

If you feel overrun, it's time to start adding things to your day that are pleasurable for you.

Not believing your brain when it says, I don't have time, I'm too busy.

It's not enough.

Taking that five seconds to take three deep breaths, plant more flowers.

Changing the way that you think about yourself, changing the way that you deal with yourself, changing the way that you regulate your nervous system, take care of your senses, take care of your people, allowing yourself to not perform, to constantly not be on.

For everyone, this is the way forward.

Plant more flowers.

The more flowers you plant, the less weeds have time to grow.

It's not that we don't weed.

And I've spent a lot of time on this podcast giving you real tools to navigate what isn't working in your life.

But what I will also tell you is that you need to spend an equal amount of time creating what you want.

And to me, it's about planting that garden.

Can we plant perennials like my neighbor?

Absolutely yes.

And we should.

We do that through time and practice.

When someone says to me, why is coaching effective?

It's because we do plant the flowers and we water them and we nourish them and we take care of them and we let them grow.

And we let them grow for long enough that you have a garden that is full of beautiful things, beautiful thoughts, beautiful people, beautiful experiences, and you have the ability to keep that and maintain that and know how to care for that.

To me, that's what coaching in a nutshell is.

Everybody needs this skill.

If you don't know how to plant flowers, you need to really evaluate how important is it for me to learn how to do that.

In my opinion, it's one of the most important things you can learn.

Otherwise you are just going to be perpetually weeding and wondering where the flowers are.

All right, my friends, so that's what I've got for you.

Short episode.

If you want to talk to me, if you want to talk about this, if you want to really see how this could really deeply impact your life and create a life where you feel free and expansive and happy and joyful and ready, then book a call.

Book a discovery call.

Just go to amandahest ca bookacall and we can talk about it.

Otherwise, that's what I got.

I'll see you next week.

Bye for now.

Thanks so much for listening today.

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I'm excited to see you back here next week with a brand new episode.

Until then, take care, friend.