Ep 96. Make the Best of Everything

I am Kym Showers, and this is Reinvented After 40, episode number 96: Make the Best of Everything.

Hey, friends. Welcome to Reinvented After 40, a podcast for all you women in the second half of life who are ready to take responsibility for your own well-being and create a life you love living.

I’m your host, Kym Showers, and after spending the first 40 years of my life people-pleasing and following all the rules, I was exhausted and ready for a change. I reinvented myself. I stopped outsourcing my happiness. And I’ve been brave enough to live a different kind of life.

I’ll be here each week to help you do the same thing. It’s going to be fun. Let’s go.

Hey my friends, welcome back to the podcast, episode number 96. This is so insane. I’m working my way to my 100th episode and we have something so special planned. I cannot even believe we’re doing this. So I’m going to let you know what it is right now. We are going to do a best of. Can you believe I have enough content to do a best of episode? My team, who is brilliant and so amazing and way beyond everything that I could have ever expected to have as far as a production team for this podcast.

They are going to listen through my episodes and capture what they feel is the best of and put it all in one episode. And I can’t wait to hear it. I think I’m going to learn a ton of stuff listening to that episode. So I’m excited about that. And we’re going to do a podcast giveaway for the 100th episode. So I’m working on that. I have a bunch of stuff I’m working on or should be working or I’m supposed to be working on and will be working on in the next week. I have a bunch of deadlines but this also is a deadline day to get this podcast recorded and sent out to my awesome podcast production team.

Also I have a team who is building a brand new website for me and they’re geniuses. And I have a designer who has designed me a whole new vibe, a whole new logo. And you’re going to love it so much. I’m so obsessed with the whole thing and I realized that my 100th episode will probably coincide exactly with my 100,000th download. So the universe is just aligned with everything in my heart and my brain and my spirit. We’re just all aligned and I’m partnering with God, with the universe. And we are making the absolute best of everything.

I think that this is such a fun way to live. I think it’s the most exciting, most motivating, most inspiring way to live. If you’re a woman in the second half of life, we absolutely can make the best of everything every single day if we want to and I want to and I absolutely do. Even if I feel a little pressured, even if there are things that well, are maybe problems and not quite going right, I know how to make the best of everything. It’s always my intention. It’s always what I’m working on. I’m so focused on the good stuff in my life that I can’t help but make the best of everything. I want you to know that.

So a couple of ways, a couple of ideas that I have is first of all know for sure that you are creating your daily experience, it’s not the circumstances that are. So your circumstances are just the facts of your life. There is just neutral as far as the world goes, as far as life goes. So someone could be living in exactly my circumstances and be completely miserable. So think about that. So you might think, well, of course, she makes the best of everything because look at her life.

But I promise you that if you dropped another woman into my exact circumstances she will have a completely different experience than I’m having because I know how to make the best of my circumstances. I know how to make the best of everything because it’s what I want to do and it’s what I practice doing. I look at things through a shifted mindset and with different kinds of questions. I have different habits that give me a different experience.

So I want you to know that my experiences, the way that I live and the joy that I experience every single day is absolutely possible for you too, for everybody, if that’s what you’re open to, if that’s what you’re willing to work on and receive. So every day when you wake up, if you decide I am going to make the best of everything today, no matter what. Whatever is on my schedule, anything that ‘might go wrong’, I’m going to ask myself what would my highest self do right now? What would she say? How would she show up?

I know I’ve told you this before, but I literally think this thought. What if today is my birthday? I always so look forward to special occasions and special days and I would never waste a special day. I would never waste a special occasion. I would always make it the very best day possible. So what if you just looked at every day like it’s your birthday, every day like it’s a special occasion.

We just celebrated 4th of July and the kids were here for a few days and we just made every day 4th of July. So every day we celebrated. Every day was just super, duper fun. We all kind of just showed up with really fun attitudes and we made it really special and really fun. That’s how you make the best of everything. You just decide ahead of time, let’s just treat it, first of all, like it’s neutral, nothing’s bad. Our brain wants to see things from a sense of lack, a sense of what we’re missing and what’s going wrong. This is what our default brain goes to.

But instead of just going along with that, we look around and we go, “Oh my gosh, look at this day. Look at that blue sky. Look at all the possibilities. What do I want to eat for breakfast? How do I want to show up with my kids today? How can I make this really fun? How can I solve this ‘problem’ in the best possible way?” What if I’m just like this genius problem solver and everything is here for my benefit, even if it’s so called problems?

I actually had this, I think it was last week, whatever was the week at the end of the month of June before we got to July. So I had fraud for the very first time and I chose to think of it as, wow, this is the very first time. So this is pretty exceptional that I’ve never had anybody try and scam me or take money out of my business account since I started my business. So it’s been almost six years ago or five and a half years ago. All my bills run through this specific card, the specific account number.

Well, the last week of the month of June, somewhere in Europe, I had a couple of fraud charges go through my account. And so my bank shut down that account because they knew it was fraud. I confirmed it was fraud. And so unfortunately all my bills, everybody that I pay, all my teams, when they ran the charges through, everything got denied. So they didn’t get paid and I didn’t get my new card for another week. So I’m still dealing with that and trying to get everybody paid and hoping that no one shuts off my services and all of that has just been a challenge for me.

But I literally decided I’m not going to freak out about this. I know that everything will be solved eventually. And the worst possible thing that can happen is someone stops their services that I’m counting on. And even that won’t be a problem. No one’s going to die. Everything’s going to be okay. We’ll all just have to reestablish my account with them. I’ll have to pay it late. And I was even thinking maybe the latest podcast wouldn’t be able to come out because my platform didn’t get paid. My production team didn’t get paid and they still haven’t gotten paid.

So it has just been every day just trying to get everything settled with everybody. And so far I’m still alive. My business is still flourishing. It doesn’t seem like anyone’s mad at me. Everybody’s been very patient with me. They know I’m good for it because this has just never happened before. So I just decided I’m going to make the best of everything. And it’s to my benefit that I do that. It’s always to my benefit. I don’t waste a bunch of time worrying and spinning out on things that I don’t have control of.

And I think that that is such a skill to practice because we’re going to have challenges sometimes every single day. Things aren’t going to go exactly like they ‘should’. Or relationships, maybe someone gets mad at you and that’s okay. I’ve gotten so much better about how not trying to manage anybody else’s emotions, which is so to all of our benefits, it’s always making the best of everything.

So even in coaching this week I coached a client who wanted to figure out a relationship that she’s in that’s really important to her. And she felt, she called it a gut punch because there was a reaction to something that she said and she got her feelings hurt. And so I got to coach her on that. And this is the way I coached her, you guys, because this is what I’ve learned. I am so sure that it’s to our benefit in every single relationship we have to stay in our own lane and let everybody do what they need to do.

So the problem with us women in the second-half of life, we are really good at wanting to control our people. We want to control our husbands or our partners. We need them to act a certain way and to do certain things, we have expectations of them. And the only problem with that is that we are just hurting ourselves when we are trying to control them. So what I’ve gotten really good at is just letting my kids, my husband, all the people who I love the most, be who they are. And I just have almost zero expectations of them, believe it or not. I just pour out love onto them. I just love them.

And this is what I told my client, “Your only job is to love and enjoy this person in your life. You are no longer in charge of them.” Your job is to be in charge of you. My job is to be in charge of me and to make the best of this relationship. To be more in tune with how I’m showing up, to be more in tune with my thoughts and my feelings and my actions than I am with his or with hers. That’s when we take back all of our power. That’s when we learn how to trust ourselves. As much as I love and trust my people, I don’t think about that anymore because I love and trust myself more.

So I’m not trying to control them so I can feel a certain way, feel better, feel safe. I feel safe with me. I trust me and it’s just because I’ve gotten out of their business. I’ve stopped trying to control them so I can feel better and I just decide to feel better. I like the way I’m being. I like the way I’m living and showing up in the world and in these relationships that I value the most. That I really do just want to maintain loving, connected relationships with this handful of people in my life that mean and matter the very most to me. I zoom out because I’m in it for the long game.

I’m not in it for the short game actually. I want to lay on my deathbed and say, “I have loved myself and my people so well.” I have loved them sometimes when I didn’t feel like loving them. I’ve learned how to do that. I have learned how to not take things personally, literally I have. This is everything for us women in the second half of life.

If we can learn how to not take things personally with the people we love the most, we know everything that they say, everything they do is completely about them and is neutral. It is not about me at all. It is not good or bad, it is just neutral. Now, how do I want to think and feel about it? I just want to pour out love on them. There is nothing that feels more powerful than just to love people unconditionally. I just love being the woman who loves and not being the woman who reacts, but just being the woman who responds intentionally 99% of the time, that is always my job.

That feels so good to me. I love being me. I love my relationships. I love my days. I feel like intentionally I make the best of everything because of this. I rarely have to apologize for anything because I don’t react in a way that I feel bad about afterwards. I’m just like, “Yeah, everybody gets to do whatever they do. “And it’s not my job to correct or to make assumptions but just to love them and to just be living my great, amazing, best life every day. It changes everything, you guys, I promise you.

Get so obsessed with creating a life that you’re proud of, a life that it feels so positive and optimistic and motivating every day that you literally are consumed with that. And moving forward like what you’re doing now and what you’re going to do tomorrow and next week and next month and next year. And you’re looking forward to everything. You’re getting so good at doing ‘hard things’ because you’re pushing yourself and you’re growing. And you’re capable of pretty much anything that life kind of brings to you.

You’re capable of looking everything straight on and not hiding from it but you just keep showing up as your best self on purpose. So this consumes most of your energy. You don’t have time to be wandering around in other people’s business, making assumptions and criticisms and giving your opinion where your opinion has never been invited or asked for. So you don’t have any time to be gossiping or giving your opinion. I just don’t give my opinion about anybody else very often at all unless it’s just something good.

I’m always looking for the good and the best in everyone. And I’m always finding it because that is what I’m looking for. That is what I’m intentional about. That is what I’m focused on. And I want you to borrow all of this from me. I want you to notice what you get tangled up in and what becomes your distraction every single day from your own work. It’s crazy how much time women spend all nutted up about other people’s business and other people’s problems and it’s because our brain gets distracted easily because we don’t want to work on our own life.

Let’s just get wrapped up in our own life and if we have problems, let’s solve those problems. We’re just really good problem solvers. Let’s solve our own problems and let everybody else solve their problems. Our job isn’t for other people to think highly of us, to think well of us, to treat us with respect and regard, because that is our job. Our job is to think highly of us and to be about our own business and be about our own dreams and be about our own intentions.

If we spend half the energy on our own lives, creating magical amazing things in the world, we will not have any time or any energy to be about other people’s business. We’re too busy creating magic in the world, making the best of everything in the world every single day. We don’t have days to waste. There is no wasted day when you’re living like this. This is a life that feels so powerful. This is a life that feels well lived. This is a life that is available to you and to me every single day of our lives. We have these opportunities just waiting for us to take advantage of them.

So it is so possible, you guys to make the best of everything and there is not a better way to live. Take everything and make the very best of it. That’s how you live your very best life. That’s how you’re able to handle hard things and grow your capacity to become a woman of grit and a woman of resilience and a woman of resourcefulness. That’s our goal. That’s who we want to be, beautiful, strong, resilient, resourceful women in the second half of life. So we get to be the example of that moving forward, no more complaining.

I’m just about my work. I’m just busy making good things happen. I don’t have time to talk about it, I’m just too busy doing it. It takes action, it’s not only our thought work, it’s our actions. And that’s why I say, know how to create feelings for yourself that motivate you to take action. We have to take action. Action is scary. We do it with sweaty armpits. We’re always creating something bigger and better and more beautiful than we created yesterday. That’s how we make the best of everything. I’m about it over here. I want to be the example of it for you guys wherever you are listening to this.

I want you to think about your life. I want you to zoom out right now. I want you to think about it from a broader perspective. I want you to get out of your own head and get out of your own circumstances and look at it maybe from a neutral perspective, maybe from the story that I would tell about your life. Because I promise you, if you’re feeling bad about things, if you’re feeling bad about you, I will tell you a totally different story that will be so much more useful for you. I just want to think useful thoughts. I don’t want to think thoughts that aren’t useful.

I’m going to think thoughts that are motivating and inspiring and that are moving us forward. We’re not clinging to any stories of the past. I mean, I don’t think thinking about the past is that useful. I think it’s more about thinking about who I am becoming. And I have her in my mind and I want you to know that you can have who you’re becoming in your mind and that you can create a magnetic life for yourself where the people that you want to hang out with, want to hang out with you.

You’re bringing the good energy. You’re bringing the good vibes. You’re the one making the best of everything. You’re the one that people want to hang out with. You bring out the best in life. That’s an incredible way to live. Be a woman who brings out the best in everyone and the best in every situation and in every circumstance. That’s who you want to be. Be her, step into her now. I just step into her every single day. So let’s be more of that.

I want you to join my August 1st group. Come get your spot in that group and start creating a life that you’re obsessed with, become the most interesting woman in any room that you walk into. You have so much potential to change who you’re being to your next level. There’s always a next level, and I literally, you guys, I’m just getting started. I’m just scratching the surface. I tell my clients this all the time. I feel like every month I become the next version of myself. I’m not even thinking the same thoughts that I thought last month.

Every challenge for me just brings out the best in me. I’m just like, “Yeah, I got this. This is the new offering. Yeah, I know how to handle this. This is something new for me to learn. I’m all in. Let’s go.” So instead of backing down and becoming smaller and just not up for it, 100% I’m up for it, let’s go. I mean even if you say, “What’s the worst thing that can happen when you’re facing a challenge?” Okay, I can even handle the worst thing that can happen. So I just know, I believe in myself so much.

I trust myself so much and it’s because of the way that I’m thinking about everything on purpose. And I want you to be able to be in a room with me where I’m coaching like this every week. I am looking into your mind and into your life and showing you how to think about it in a much more useful way for you. And how to show up differently to your life, how to literally stop people pleasing, how to literally stop your codependent relationships and take all of your power back and stay in your own lane. And just relate to the people you love the most in a completely different way.

It changes everything and it just gives you so much more energy to create the money that you want to create, to create the energy you want to create, to create the optimism. And even the wardrobe you want to create and the home you want to create and the job you want to create. The relationship with yourself that you want to create, up-leveling your self-concept literally a month at a time, a week at a time, a day at a time, thinking different thoughts about yourself and showing up in a much more, not even powerful but powerful way but confident way.

It is so fun to be a super confident woman in her 60s, in her 70s, in her 50s, in her 40s. This is our time to make a difference, not only in our own lives, in our families lives, in the world’s lives. Everything is possible for you, my friend. And I would love to work with you and help you get so much traction in your life. You are so worth it, you are absolutely so beautiful, so powerful and so worth it moving forward. You have a whole life ahead of you, I promise you, a whole entire life that can look completely different than that first half.

Okay, that’s what I have for you today. Learn to make the best of everything, there is no downside to it, I promise you. The more you try it, the more you’re intentional about it, the more you take action on it, the better your life gets, the more expansive your life gets and actually the better your circumstances even get. Alright, I love you so much. Thanks for showing up today and I will see you next Thursday?

Thanks for listening to Reinvented After 40. If you want more information or resources from the podcast, please visit KymShowersLifeCoach.com.