You're living the life you once dreamed of living

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In this week's episode of the podcast, I dive into a topic that has given me goosebumps - realizing that you are living your dream life.

We explore why it's crucial to bask in this belief and celebrate the progress and goals you've already achieved and I share a personal story about a beautiful morning with my husband that led me to reflect on how far I've come.

This episode is all about acknowledging your accomplishments, and I will offer 4 actionable steps to help you embrace this truth.  

This episode is a powerful reminder for all ambitious women to pause and appreciate their journey. Let’s get to it! 

Topics in this episode:

  • Recognizing and celebrating current achievements. 

  • Tips for handling stress and finding balance in daily life. 

  • The importance of acknowledging progress. 

  • Practical steps to embrace living your dream life. 

  • Practicing being present and satisfied.

Show Notes & References:

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Transcript

Intro

You are living your dream life. Yep. You are living the life that you once dreamed of living. 

Take that in for a moment. Think about how true it is. 

And yet, for so many ambitious women, there's no joy or satisfaction in that truth. Their brain sort of glossed right over the achievement and moved on to the next goal. 

In today's podcast, I, talk about why it's so important to bask in the belief that you are living your dream life today, and why it's so important to acknowledge all of the progress and the goals that you've already achieved. 

Lastly, I want to offer to you four actionable steps so that you can believe and live into that truth that you are living your dream life. This is one of those podcasts that just gives me goosebumps. You're not going to want to miss it. So let's get to it. 

Welcome to the Ambitious and Balanced Working Moms podcast, the place for women who want to balance their ambitious career goals with their life as a mom. If you're looking to feel more confident, decisive and productive at both work and home, then this is the place for you. I'm your host, Rebecca Olson. Let's get to it. 

Hello, working moms. It is such a beautiful day, and I want to share with you this beautiful moment that I had with my husband yesterday, because it's going to lead into what we're going to talk about here on the podcast today. 

So it's Sunday morning and I slept in a little bit. So that means I like woke up around 7:30am and we had church at 9am and the kids were watching cartoons, which is what they do on a weekend morning. And usually that ends around 8am or 8:15am or so. 

And so my husband and I had this like pocket of time with just ourselves when the kids were totally distracted. And so we knew we weren't going to be interrupted. And we, were fully awake because it was the morning time, not the evening time. And we had this moment where we could just talk. 

I know so many of you know what I'm talking about and are super jealous of this time that my husband and I had yesterday. So we grabbed our coffee and tea. My husband drinks coffee, I drink tea. And we headed out to our deck. 

Connection time with my husband.

It was a beautiful, crisp morning. We each had a blanket. The sun was kind of rising on the side of the house and hadn't quite crusted over our house yet. It was just such a beautiful time where we were able to really, really connect. 

And now, because I'm a little bit weird. I tend to ask very deep, connecting kinds of questions in these moments, and I ask my husband, hey, so what's God been talking to you about these days? 

Or if you're not somebody that believes in God, or if that's not your thing, another way I might have asked this was like, what are kind of the, life lessons that have been on your mind recently? 

My husband, shared a few. It wasn't hard for him to come up with a few of these beautiful reflections that he's been having on his life lately, things that, you know, we never get to talk about over the course of our day to day logistics of life and carting the kids around from here to there. And we actually had time to sit and to listen and connect and talk about these things. 

So he shared a couple of these things that he's been reflecting on lately, a couple of habits that he's been wanting to shift and kind of turn around. And then, of course, it was time for me to speak, and he asked me the question back.

And to be honest, I hadn't thought about the answer to this question, or, like, my answer to this question until he turned the question back to me. And I took a moment and I thought about it, and I decided to share something with my husband that I'd been thinking about over the last week or a couple of weeks that, in my mind, had had this profound impact on my energy and my emotional state. And so I wanna share it with you and dive into it a little bit here on the podcast. You ready? 

Now, I'm gonna be honest, this idea didn't quite start with me. It actually was first introduced to me in kind of in the context of the business world, but I sort of borrowed it as a thought for my life as a whole. So here it is. You ready? 

I am living my dream life, literally. 

I am currently living a life that I once dreamed of living. Just gives me goosebumps thinking about it. 

So, hold on, hold on. Now, I really want you to take this in. So I'm going to say it again, and if you have the ability to close your eyes for, like, 5 seconds, do that. If you're driving, definitely don't do that. It would be very unsafe. But I'm going to flip the language to make it about you, because I really, really, really want you to take in the power of this thought. You ready? Here it goes. 

You are living your dream life. 

You are living the life that you once dreamed of living. 

I feel like that statement sort of speaks for itself. But of course I want to talk about it and unpack, it here. 

And I'm going to, at the end of this podcast, give you four very specific, actionable steps to really take that thought and that belief even further. 

But this is a remarkable belief, because so often for us as ambitious women, we are always looking ahead. 

We are always believing that there is more and that we should be doing more and we should be more and we should achieve more. 

Our brains literally live like ten tasks ahead of us, ten steps ahead of us. We have a high capacity to achieve, and it's something that makes us extra special. It has made us very successful in our jobs. It has made us like a force to be reckoned with. Very powerful. It's deeply a part of who we are.

But if we don't actively manage the part of our brain that's telling us to do more and be more, it will always leave us depleted, like we're not enough, like we will never be enough, and that we can never do enough to ever achieve it. 

Celebrating your journey.

And that's why this belief that you are already living your dream life, the life that you had once dreamed of living, right now you're living it. That is why this belief is so, so radically important, because it has you celebrating where you have been and how far you have come and what you've achieved. 

It acknowledges that at one time, the life you're living today was a goal ten years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, right? And you've actually achieved it. 

You are a goal setter and a goal achiever. 

You are a dream life liver. 

You are someone that knows how to name and go after what they want.

You have arrived. 

Those are powerful thoughts that you get to think about yourself, and they're 100% true. You don't have to trick your brain into believing that. Those are powerful thoughts that you get to have about yourself, and they're 100% true. You don't have to trick your brain into believing this for a moment, you just have to consider it. 

Now, I know that not everybody's dream looks exactly like this, right? There are lots of different circumstances, lots of different dreams out there. Many of us are very different, but most of us have some, semblance of this dream. 

Graduate from college, get a good job, work your way up, find a partner in life, have kids, buy a house, have enough money to go on vacations and indulgence in small pleasures, have enough money to retire one day. That's it. 

That's a big dream that most of us have. It's sort of the american dream on some level, and most of us still, on some level, want some flavor of that, right? 

Your life might look a little bit different than that in specific, but I'm sure there are lots of elements in there that you have already achieved, because you are a dream achiever. 

You're somebody that goes after what they want and actually gets it. 

Now, if you're watching me on this podcast, you can tell, like, I'm very animated about this, and you see this big smile, smile on my face, because it's really hard for me to not smile when I think about this, because I remember the hardship of what it took to get here, to this moment in my own life. 

My mind immediately goes to after college. And I made this strategic move to take a job in Seattle, which meant, I moved from San Diego to Seattle. I just so happened to meet and marry my husband up there. 

And then we made a very difficult decision within the first year of our marriage to move back down to California so that he could go to graduate school. And my husband went through this sort of identity crisis as he kind of tried to figure out what he wanted in his career. And then we made some very intentional financial decisions to get him to a place where he could figure that out. 

And then I remember the years of us sort of counting our pennies around our finances and feeling like we were in this financial struggle as he was working out whatever he wanted as we made this transition. 

And I think about the year and a half it took us to get pregnant with our daughter, and all of the emotions and the roller coaster that we went through of hope and then discouragement. 

Leap of faith

And then I think about the big leap of faith that I took as I left my corporate job and I started my coaching business. And several of the strategic decisions we made financially in order to invest in the future of my business, having no idea if it was really going to work out. 

And then I think about the recent move that we made from Albany to Benicia. We left Albany after having been there for 14 years, moved to an entirely new city, uprooted our family. And then because we did that, it led to us making the most recent purchase that we made, which is our new home and being first time homeowners today. 

I have an amazing husband. I have two children that I absolutely adore that keep me on my toes. I have a brand new home. I have a successful business. I have money in my bank account towards retirement. I have savings for fun things. My husband loves his job.

I am literally living the dream. The dream that I once had. I am living it today. 

Now, you might be thinking, yes, Rebecca, I am living the dream. Or, I'm living a good portion of that dream, but I'm not feeling it. I don't feel like I'm living the dream. I'm not living in that energy of having achieved that dream and that goal. 

I know. I know. Because somewhere along the line in you creating today's dream life, your brain realized that there was more, that you could make more money, that you could do more things, that you could have higher positions, that you could have a bigger house, that you could have a bigger savings, right? 

Your brain literally thought it could do more. 

And remember, as an ambitious person, your brain likes to go after more. And so what happened is, without you really knowing it, your definition of the dream changed, right? 

And no longer the old dream felt enough. It was time to go after a new dream, a bigger dream. 

Think about it like this. You set out to achieve losing ten pounds, right? So you wake up every day to work out, eat healthy. It feels hard. It feels super uncomfortable. And then one day, without you really consciously realizing that, your brain thinks, you know, I wonder if I could lose 20 pounds. Yeah, 20 pounds would actually be better. That's really the goal that I have. But you've already lost five pounds. So you were halfway to your goal of ten. 

And now, because you've changed the goal from ten to 20, you're only a quarter of the way there. So now it feels like you have so much further to go, and it feels so, so hard. And eventually, you probably hit the ten pound mark. But there's nothing to celebrate, right? 

There's no achievement. 

There's no good feelings. 

There's no pat on the back. 

There's no endorphin experience that happens with hitting the goal because you changed the goal along the way. 

Without really thinking about it, your motivation and the difficulty of losing weight feels harder and harder and harder to achieve. Right. 

This happens to so many of us in life goals where our mind consciously starts thinking about not the achievement of the thing in front of us, the original goal, but what would be, like, a better goal. It almost has, like, a secret goal in mind, and then it kind of morphs into that goal over time. 

Celebrate our goals.

And so that we never celebrate all of the milestones and the achievements that we hit along the way because our brain shifted to the big, big, big, like, end goal, right? So common for us as ambitious women to do this, but it's always better to have one goal and to go after it until you hit it and then celebrate the heck out of the achievement of that and then set the next goal, right. 

You have likely already hit so many of the goals that you have set for yourself. 

You're living the life that you once dreamed of living. And I want you to feel that accomplishment, that satisfaction, that sufficiency, that enoughness that you have and is available to you in the belief that you have already attained so much of your dream. Not that there's not more that you want to achieve. 

I want you to hear that I know that there's so much more that you want out of life. And you could celebrate today and everything that you have achieved and the dreams that you have reached up till this point. And you can want more and have bigger dreams and bigger goals, right? It's not an either or. 

And the reason it's so important to take time to celebrate and to recognize and feel the goodness of what you have already achieved in your dream life is because when you do that, it's so much easier to achieve the next goal, right? 

You're already halfway there, or you're like 75% there, and you just have a little bit further to go when you, like, tack on that next goal, right? 

When your brain focuses on the progress that you've made and the milestones that you've hit, you are infinitely more motivated to reach the next one because you believe it.

It changes something in your psyche, where all of a sudden you believe that you know how to set a goal, set a dream and then achieve it. When you set the next goal or the next dream, your brain goes, I already know how to do that. I've already done it. 

The progress effect.

It creates what's called a progress effect, where natural motivation and energy is cultivated. When your brain focuses on what you have achieved and what you have done and the progress that you have made, instead of focusing on the progress not made and what you have left to do. 

The second reason, I want to point out why it's so important to celebrate goals achieved and the dream life that you are already living. The second reason is because it feels good. 

It just feels so good to celebrate and to acknowledge your wins and to see yourself in such a positive light. 

I know for so many of the women I work with, this concept actually feels very foreign. I ask my clients every single time they get on a call with me. 

So we work together for six months. We do 18 sessions, three sessions a month together. And the very first thing I ask them is, what do you want to celebrate since the last time we talked? 

And the reason I asked that is because I know for high achievers, celebrating progress and, like, naming and celebrating wins is not something they practice very often. It's not something I practice very often. We actually have to have very intentional space to practice that. 

And, we do that because it feels good. It actually feels good. And that joy, I want that to permeate in your body. I want your body to get familiar with that feeling of joy and satisfaction so that it creates more and more and more of it. 

It's so important to celebrate progress, to celebrate achievement. 

It builds new self concept where you start believing in yourself as being a goal setter, a goal achiever, a task achiever, whatever it is. And it also builds natural motivation. 

Let's talk about four actionable steps you can take to cultivate and live out this dream life that you are living today. 

In so many ways. We've already talked about them, but I want to highlight them as actual steps, something that you need to actually do.

Number one, acknowledge. Take the time to sit down and think about how you are currently living a life that you had once dreamed of living. 

What were those dreams that you once had that you remember? Maybe even down to grade school, high school, college, just out of college, right into that first job at that time. 

What do you remember about those dreams and how are you living them today. 

I want you to think about it, journal about it, write about it, talk about it. 

Number two, I want you to celebrate. I literally want you to smile as you think about yourself as being a dream achiever. You did it. I want you to share it with your partner or your best friend, anyone that will listen to you. 

Tell someone about these dreams that you once had and how you've achieved them. Maybe even you turn the question on them and you say, hey, what dreams are you living today that you once dreamed of living? 

Imagine what kind of conversation you could have about that. What a fun question to ask and learn from people. 

Number three, I want you to practice the thought or thoughts:

  • I am a dream liver. 

  • I am a goal achiever. 

  • I am currently living my dream life. 

You could just pick one of those three thoughts and practice it. 

This week I want you to write it down. You could write it down randomly on a piece of paper and then throw that piece of paper away. It doesn't matter. You could journal about it, you could repeat it in your head, you could use it as a mantra, say it out loud, or write it down in some way, get it out of your head every day this week. 

Powerful thoughts.

Something really, really powerful happens when your conscious brain hears a powerful thought like that. The conscious brain then sends it back into your subconscious and then it becomes a new belief, a new thought, a new self concept that you get to carry around with yourself. 

Number four, I want you to practice thinking and speaking both and thoughts. You could do this not just as it relates to the big picture in terms of life dreams, you could do this in the little things too. 

I achieved a lot today and there's more to do. 

That's a both and thought. 

I had some great meetings today that were super powerful and I really need to work at showing up more prepared. 

I left work on time to be with my kids and I need to work at being a little bit more present. 

You're creating progress as you think about this next level of achievement that you want to have. It's always a, both and you always, always, always have done something well and achieved something. 

If there's more to do, and even if you want to do it better, your brain is always going to want to focus on the progress you didn't make, on the failures that you had, the things that didn't go well. 

It's your job to very intentionally focus on the things that you have done and the progress that you have made and the things that you have done well and the achievement of things. It's not going to feel natural. It might not ever feel natural, and that's okay. 

In my one-on-one coaching practice, I teach my clients three steps to creating an ambitious, balanced life. 

The first step is believing in yourself at the highest level that you probably have never ever believed before, so that you feel so confident that you can make the changes that you want and achieve all of the dreams that you want to achieve. 

The second step, and this is so relevant to the conversation we had here today, is to know exactly what it is you want and, why it's so important to you. 

We talk about this as it relates to your day to day priorities, so you know exactly what you need to be giving your time and your energy to at any given moment. And we talk about it with regards to your life dreams, because most women have never planned their life past this moment. 

So many women come to me having already achieved the dreams that they set out, to achieve. Just like we talked about here today, but their brain has no idea what's next. And so in coaching, we spend time actually naming that. 

And then the third step is learning how to control your time, your energy, and your happiness. 

Feeling present and satisfied everyday.

This is where a whole lot of the practical tools come in with coaching. Because I teach you how to say no, how to let people be disappointed, how to manage your time differently, how to endure failure, how to get yourself out of overwhelm, and how to practice feeling present and satisfied in the everyday moments of your life. 

Working moms, friends, you are already living your dream life. 

And if you are not experiencing joy and satisfaction that comes with that, or you have no idea what's next for you and how to even achieve what's next for you because there is just so much stress and overwhelm and so little time - that is where I come in. 

I am an expert at helping ambitious moms create and control their ambitious life so that they feel present and they feel balanced every single day. So if you're looking for an expert guide, I would love to connect with you. 

You can go to www.rebeccaolsoncoaching.com to learn more about the coaching that I do and to click on that button that says book a call where you can speak directly with me about these three steps and exactly what we're going to do in coaching together. 

All right, working moms, believe this - you've already achieved the dream that you once set out to achieve. 

You are a dream liver. 

You are a goal achiever. 

Go with that, feel the satisfaction and the joy of that today. Until next week. Let's get to it.  

Rebecca Olson