One of the things we as women tend to buy into is investing all of our time and energy into our SHOULDS and leaving no time to invest into our SELF. And I'm talking about shoulds like putting everyone else's needs and happiness before your own. Ticking off the boxes of success that you believe you should tick in order to be accepted, approved of and valued by others.

Shoulds like always having it all together, maintaining a perfect household, meeting societal beauty standards, balancing career and family flawlessly, always being available and accommodating, and perhaps even suppressing your own ambitions to support others. And so on, and so on, and so on.

We mistakenly believe that all of these shoulds will lead us to a happy and fulfilling life. What we don't realize is that catering to shoulds will almost always require that you shrink your most authentic SELF, that you shrink your truest dreams, and settle for far less than you deserve or that you are capable of. And shoulds are one of the greatest depletors of SELF Wealth that I know of.

Here's what else I know. When we fail to invest into our SELF first and foremost, and we allow our SELF Wealth to be gradually depleted through our conformity to who we believe we should be and how we believe our life should be, eventually we wind up feeling insignificant in our own lives, feeling forgotten or overlooked, bored, lost, overwhelmed, and physically and emotionally drained or burnt out.

We wake up one day finding that, while we have successfully fulfilled all of our shoulds, we have unsuccessfully fulfilled ourselves. Which leaves us feeling deeply unsatisfied with our lives, and in particular, with our who we are being in our lives.

The problem is having spent so long saying YES! to your shoulds and NO to yourself, when it comes to that line-in-the-sand moment in time when you decide that you will no longer settle for coming second place to everyone and everything else in your world, you will no longer live according to your shoulds, we tend to feel a lot of guilt about putting ourselves first. Shame or embarrassment for feeling the way we feel despite everything we have. And self-doubt about stepping out of the shadows of our own life, admitting we want something different, and claiming the spotlight on our own terms.

And sometimes, we turn to telling ourselves should not stories, and we can stay stuck there for years. Stories like, we shouldn't be unhappy, unfulfilled, dissatisfied. We shouldn't want more than we have. We shouldn't rock the boat of our stable lives or upset the apple cart. We shouldn't feel the way we feel, and we definitely shouldn't change. I stayed there for far too long myself and I gotta tell you, these should nots are just as big a drain on your SELF Wealth as your shoulds.

When I finally decided I wanted to say YES! to me and a life that I would love to live every moment of, I had run up a huge deficit in my SELF Wealth bank account. And because I knew that everything I wanted was an inside job, it started within, in my SELF, investing into my SELF and rebuilding my SELF Wealth was an absolute priority when I started out on this new chapter in my life.

So, today I want to share with you the five investments I made into my SELF at that time that really helped me fast-track rebuilding my SELF Wealth and in turn, becoming the kind of woman who lives a life she loves.

My friend, investing into your SELF to build your SELF Wealth is the best investment you can ever make in your lifetime. So let's talk about five powerful ways you can do just that.

Welcome to The Self-Creation School podcast, for women who are ready to ditch mediocrity, step up and get more of what they want, and finally say YES! to a life that sets their soul on fire. I'm your host Leanne Letica, Self-Creation Coach, founder of The Self-Creation School AND Queen of YES!. If you're ready to play life by your own personal rule book, and give yourself permission to say YES! to yourself and your wildest dreams, this podcast is the place for you.

Welcome to another episode of The Self-Creation School Podcast, where I share my self-creation secrets to help you create a life you love waking up to every single day. I am so glad you are listening in today because the things I want to share with you have helped me completely transform my world.

If you've been hanging out with me for any length of time, you will have probably either read or heard me share my story. But for those of you who are just discovering me or this podcast for the first time, let me give you the nuts and bolts to help you understand what led me to my line-in-the-sand moment and needing to rebuild my SELF Wealth.

I started out in my early twenties as a single mum. My first husband left when my daughter was six weeks old, and he kindly left me not just holding the baby bundle, but also our bundle of debt, to the tune of around $50,000.

At the time I had no job, I had quit my job to have my daughter. And I needed to earn a living fast, but I also needed to be able to set my hours. It was a really tall order back then, and so I ended up cleaning homes of multi-millionaires who paid me very well for my perfectionist tendencies and attention to detail.

It was during this time I started battling an eating disorder because after years of yo-yo dieting and struggling with my weight, I told myself at all costs now that I was a single mum with extra baggage, I needed to make sure that I stayed super slim and trim, or no man would ever look twice at me again.

My health spiraled out of control pretty fast and well, life wasn't all that much fun. I had debt collectors constantly at my door, some weeks just $8.00 left over to buy food. And I came very close to declaring bankruptcy and giving up on myself basically. I was definitely not making a success of my life.

But then I met my now husband, and he introduced me to the power of choosing my story. Of deciding what I thought about myself and my life, how I showed up in my world, and what reality I wanted to experience. Of deciding whether I wanted to stay a victim of my circumstances or be a creator of my world. I didn't have to stay where I had been planted and he inspired me to see that everything is possible if you dare to believe that it is.

Now at that time, as I said, I was cleaning homes of multi-millionaires by day and in dating my husband, I began hanging out in the homes and playgrounds of multi-millionaires by night. Eventually, I had to decide what world I wanted to live in. And no surprise, especially given my own track record, I decided I wanted to learn everything I could from these successful people and follow in their path, because it seemed to me, they had it all figured out.

And I thought that ticking all of the same boxes these millionaires had ticked, that I would have it made, I would be happy, and I would be someone of value. I would matter like these people seem to matter. I would have their confidence, their self-belief, their lack of care for anyone's opinions but their own. At least it looked that way on the surface anyway. The truth that I've since discovered is quite different.

So I went about ticking the boxes. I redefined what I believed was possible for me. I reinvented who I saw myself as and the life I saw myself living. And essentially rewrote the rules for what was meant to happen for women like me, a single mom, cleaning to scratch together a living. And as I elevated my identity and what I believed was possible for me in my world, I completely changed my story and my success.

And for a long time, I thought I had this thing down pat. I was checking off all the boxes that define success, and therefore I was a success, and my life was a success. I had the marriage, the kids, the home, the business, the lifestyle, the travel, you name it, I ticked it. But as the years went by, I had this lingering feeling like there was something I was missing.

The reality was none of these shoulds that I had successfully ticked off were actually making me feel happy or fulfilled. I felt invisible in my life. I felt like I didn't matter. And that at the end of the day, my life didn't matter. And because I felt so ungrateful and ashamed to admit this, I tried to deny these feelings for many years, all the while beating myself up for feeling this way, blaming myself and how I really was still such a failure at this thing called life. I mean, if I couldn't be happy with this kind of life, who was I, right? How could I ever be happy? I told myself I didn't deserve to be.

Eventually, I couldn't face myself in the mirror because my look of self-loathing was all too much. I really felt like I was living a lie. Like I was some kind of imposter in this life, and my real life was, well, who knew where. I didn't like an inch of who I was being, and I felt so empty inside, drained by keeping up the appearances of my supposedly successful life, and ever so lonely in that life because I couldn't bring myself to share my real experience of it.

And I knew things couldn't go on like this another day, let alone for the second half of my life. Something had to change and that something started with me. Because here's what I learned the hard way. Despite my success, despite going from being that almost bankrupt, single mom, clearing the homes of multi-millionaires to becoming a millionaire, no amount of net wealth could buy me the SELF Wealth I was so very depleted of. I had created all of my success by ticking off shoulds that I thought would finally make me feel accepted, approved of, valued, like I mattered, like I was worthy, and they didn’t.

I learned that only I could give myself the gift of mattering. And to do that, I needed to pull that me out of the shadows and become the star of my own show. I had to redefine what success actually meant to me, the kind of success that would make me feel happy, fulfilled, proud, and accomplished. I had to challenge the status quo and have the courage to rock the boat of life as I knew it.

And I knew all of that was going to demand a whole lot of SELF Wealth that I didn't even have a scrap of. And so this is why I started right there.

So let me share with you the five things I invested into to rebuild my SELF Wealth bank balance and I still invest into every single day so that I can become SELF Wealthier and reach out for even bigger and bolder dreams.

The number one thing I did was to find a coach to guide and support me.

I have had many coaches and mentors over the years, mostly however in those earlier years when I elevated my identity and in turn my reality. When I look back on my life, there was a direct correlation between the years I had a coach and my ability to create change and the years I didn't, where if I'm honest, my mindset led my reality into a downward spiral more often than not.

So for me, I understood the impact working with a coach can have and this is the first thing I set out to do. I also immersed myself in podcasts, books and anything I could do to fill my mind with inspiration, motivation, and the courage to go forth just one more day on my path to YES!.

The second thing I did was I started journaling again.

Now I have journaled a lot in my earlier days, but not so much in my 30s and early 40s. I kind of let it fall to the wayside. And again, I found it interesting looking back at the connection between my mindset, my ability to create change, and putting pen to paper. So I knew journaling was also going to play a very big role in me moving forward.

And I actually started out this whole process of transforming my life with a two-week boot camp with just myself and my journal. Literally from nine to five, it was me with a pen in hand. Pretty extreme perhaps, but I was in an extreme place at the time.

During those two weeks, I had some very deep conversations with myself about my SELF. About my life, my fears, my regrets, my dreams, and my hopes for the future. Honest and deeply insightful conversations without the judgment and criticism I had gotten used to beating myself up with. Just letting what felt like a lifetime of thoughts all flow out and onto paper so that I could try and make sense of things.

From there, I started journaling about what could be possible. I started imagining a different life, imagining a different me, and essentially using my journal to live in the question of what could be, if I let go of what should be and allowed it to be. In that way, journaling helped me to see that permission to ditch my shoulds and say YES! to me and I life my love was going to be an important part of my journey. And through continuing to journal daily after those initial two weeks, I was gradually able to give myself that permission.

Journaling also helped me look at my limiting stories, particularly around how I saw myself. It helped me identify how what I believed about myself and my place in the world was depleting my SELF Wealth. And you may have heard me say this, it is only through awareness that change becomes possible.

Journaling also helped me to identify my core values, my passions, figure out my purpose in life, what standards I was tolerating and accepting that were not serving me. What standards I needed to raise in order to reinvent myself and my life, and in particular, to nurture my SELF Wealth.

And vitally, journaling helped me tap into how I was feeling, why I was feeling that way, and to take my feelings and my life off autopilot. To take control of my life experience in every moment.

Over time, journaling allowed me to collect a bank of evidence for how I could be the me I wanted to be and how I could create a life I love. Every piece of evidence I collected was a deposit into my SELF Wealth bank account. A deposit of self-confidence, self-belief, self-trust.

So there are a lot of ways that a simple journal, putting pen to paper and having a conversation with yourself, can have a significant impact on your life and in building your SELF Wealth.

Moving on to number three. I invested into daily non-negotiable self-care.

Listen, I know so many women struggle with this, and I really did too. Putting ourselves last on the list often means neglecting ourselves in the process. Not spending the time or money on ourselves because we believe that the time or money can be better spent elsewhere. So we neglect our physical health, our mental health, our emotional health, our spiritual health, our physical appearance.

The morning I had my line-in-the-sand moment, I couldn't even recall the last time I took myself for a haircut. It was actually 12 months. Admittedly, I have long curly hair that hid a lot of sins, at least back then anyway, but 12 months was a ridiculously long time to go between haircuts. So you can imagine how else I might have been neglecting myself. Now, for me, this wasn't a question of money or time, but my worthiness to invest this money and time into me.

And when we neglect ourselves over many years, what happens is, we suddenly hit midlife and our body starts undergoing its own changes. And suddenly our tiredness becomes really apparent, our skin starts to show signs of aging, we start to gain some extra weight, we start to feel frumpy. We start to look like we've let ourselves go because, well, we have. And our midlife years expose in full how it is we've been caring for ourselves over the years. There is nowhere to hide in those midlife years.

Self-care is also about having self-respect. It's about caring enough about yourself to look after yourself first and foremost before everyone else. It's about showing yourself self-love, showing yourself that you matter and that you deserve to invest the time and money into taking good care of yourself in all the ways I just mentioned.

So with the encouragement of my coach and through journaling, I looked at all the ways I felt like I was neglecting myself and how I could take better care of myself. I decided what was non-negotiable moving forward and started implementing that into my daily routine. Then gradually, I added more self-care in more aspects of my life as I became comfortable with my non-negotiables.

Now, my three non-negotiables were speaking kindly to myself – that is a form of self-care, self-love, and self-respect by the way – allowing myself daily journal time for my mental and emotional health and taking physical care of my body. From hydrating myself sufficiently every day to rejoining my Pilates classes, to those regular haircuts, facials, and so forth.

And I used a lot of environmental cues to help ensure that I stopped to take care of myself in the ways that I said I would every single day. Leaving my gym clothes out where I honestly couldn't miss them. Turning music on as I showered to help lift my mood and motivate me to spend the time to make that extra effort to do my hair and makeup and dress well, not for my world but for me. Buying a beautiful water jug for my desk to encourage me to fill it every day and keep myself hydrated. Setting the table at night with a beautiful tablescape to encourage me to prepare a healthy meal and sit long enough to enjoy it.

Doing that actually helped me to reconnect with my husband in ways that we hadn't connected for years. A simple candle placed on a well-set table that demanded the respect of our time. Now, reconnecting with my husband in this way felt like a form of self-care. It felt like I was looking after my emotional health. And, quite honestly, it was a turning point in our near divorce marriage. Little things can have big impacts, my friend.

So invest in your self-care and you will also invest into your SELF Wealth.

The fourth thing I invested into was setting healthy boundaries, both with myself and with others.

I hope you can see how a lot of these things I'm sharing with you feed into each other because it was through journaling that I could establish what boundaries I lacked and where I would be well served by setting boundaries in place. And by showing myself that I mattered through taking better care of me, I affirmed my worthiness to protect my time, my mindset, my emotional well-being by no longer tolerating or accepting things that depleted my SELF Wealth.

Now, this was a very hard one for me, and I know it is for many women, maybe for you too. Boundaries can bring up a whole lot of fear, fear of upsetting people, being judged, frowned upon, rejected. They can be super hard to implement, especially if you're really lacking in boundaries or you're a big people pleaser, like I was. And so this is where you will find the guidance and support of a coach invaluable.

The thing with boundaries is that when you do put them in place and uphold them, they can supercharge your SELF Wealth like nothing else. Boundaries are the ultimate form of self-respect, and standing firm in what you will and will no longer tolerate and accept for yourself and from your world will have a significance impact on your self-confidence, self-acceptance, self-trust, self-belief, self-love. So, so many of those SELF things are positively impacted by setting an upholding boundaries.

Now again, some of those boundaries are going to be with yourself. Like for me, no longer tolerating or accepting speaking harshly to myself. No longer accepting my shoulds as the only way or the highway. Making it non-negotiable that I take care of myself in the ways that I planned, and so putting in place a boundary that my time to do that will not be compromised.

Some other examples might be getting sufficient rest, limiting your work hours to protect your family time or your leisure time, setting digital boundaries, communicating your needs to others clearly and treating them to be as valuable as everyone else's. And so on and so forth.

And some of those boundaries are going to be with other people. Maybe your spouse or partner, your children, your extended family, your boss, your friends. It could be things like having them respect your time, delegating tasks more fairly between members of the household. It could be saying no to the extra commitments that are always assumed of you. Saying no to social events that just don't interest you, even though your best friend loves them. It could be no longer allowing unsolicited advice or criticism. Spending less time with people who drain you physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Particularly when you are trying to rebuild your SELF Wealth, surrounding yourself with people who lift you up, who support you and who act as energy givers rather than takers, is going to be very important. And so if you are like most people, you are going to have to limit the time you spend with some key people that you likely have felt very obligated to spend time with over the years, despite how they drain you and leave you feeling about yourself.

Although remember you do get to decide what you make everything mean. So that nasty comment your Uncle Harry always passes on every time you see him, you get to decide what you make that mean and whether to even make it mean anything at all. Maybe Uncle Harry is just being Uncle Harry and he says the same things to everyone.

So while it is best to remove yourself or limit the time you spend with people who drain you, sometimes that isn't possible, and you'll need to remember that you are in control of your thoughts and therefore your emotions. That is actually a topic for a whole other episode, but the key here is you get to decide what you make everything mean. It doesn't excuse Uncle Harry's rude comments, but it can stop at simply that. A passing comment that doesn't need to mean anything about you.

And listen, with everything I'm sharing with you here, I want you to remember that this is not an overnight process. You can throw a whole heap of mud at a wall and it's not all going to stick, right? So it's better to gradually build up the layers of mud until you finally cover the wall. So like this, it's far better to take these concepts I'm sharing with you and do the work day by day, piece by piece, layer by layer, just one step at a time.

I promise it will all come together so much faster than you think because as you start to have small wins, like setting a small boundary with yourself, you build your self-confidence to set those bigger boundaries. And as you build more and more SELF Wealth with every single day and every small change you make, you start to be able to tackle those bigger things more easily and with far less emotional fallout.

Again, having the support of a coach is going to be super helpful here to help you stay on track and deal with the emotional setbacks along the way as, not just others react to you suddenly deciding to claim the leading lady role in your own life story and stop playing their support act, but your storyteller also reacts and tries to pull you back into life as you know it.

Invest into a coach, invest into a journal and daily journal time, invest into taking care of yourself before you take care of anyone else, and invest into establishing healthy boundaries that support you in being true to you and a life that will light you up every single day.

Which brings me to the final thing I invested into, which is decluttering.

Decluttering my mind, my emotions, my beliefs, my limiting stories, my circle of influence, my physical space, how I spent my time. I invested a lot of time in decluttering, and it was quite honestly one of the most liberating things I have ever done.

We all hang on to stuff, old beliefs, old ways of being, familiar emotions, familiar people, familiar routines, boxes of memories, clothes that don't fit or even suit who we are right now, let alone who we want to be. When we hold onto these things, they keep us stuck in the past and prevent us from moving forward.

So I spent a lot of time looking at all the things in my life that felt like they were freeloaders, taking up space and paying me no rent, meaning they were not contributing to my SELF Wealth.

I definitely spent a lot of time decluttering my stories and old beliefs through journaling. As I implemented my boundaries, I cleared up a lot of unproductive time. Time sometimes simply dwelling after the fact in a negative energy that some people seem to always instill in me.

I donated 75 percent of my wardrobe. A wardrobe that reminded me every day of the woman that I was no longer and how my body had changed. A wardrobe that served as a source of self-judgment, self-criticism, as a reminder of how I had let myself go. In doing so, I made room for the clothes that made me shine as the woman I wanted to become, the future me. Clothes that made me feel good about myself and enjoy getting dressed every day. Which is a great energy to start the day in.

I donated most of my book collection. Books that told me I needed fixing. I didn't need fixing, I needed creating. These books were taking up space that other books that supported me in creating myself and my life could take up. Books that inspired me, motivated me, rather than told me all the ways I was somehow broken. Like me, you are not broken either, and you do not need fixing. You are perfect as you are, and there's a new version of you waiting for you that is even more perfect for the life you want to live.

And I also went through boxes, and I do mean boxes upon boxes, of my past. You know what I mean, right? All those memories and keepsakes we hold onto. The ticket stubs, the past travel itineraries, the childhood moments like your first locket of hair, the sporting trophies and ribbons from your school days, your preschool paintings, and a ton of stuff that if you ever went through these boxes, you'd realize you have no recollection what they even mean.

Now, I am very much a memories girl, don't get me wrong. For years, I kept every champagne cork that we popped on our anniversary, and I even made my husband search through the bushes one year to find the cork he popped in that direction before I had a chance to tell him I wanted to keep it. I know, I am special. But all of this stuff was keeping me locked in my past. It was confirming to me who I had been, not affirming to me who I could be.

The thing I realized too in going through everything I owned, but in particular these boxes of memories, was that I was keepsaking a lot of things that my mother had kept keepsaked, or even my grandmother. And the only reason I was keepsaking them was because I felt like I should. I felt obligated to respect my mother and grandmother and their efforts in maintaining these memories for me even though many of them actually had no meaning for me.

When I let go of my should around this, I compiled all of those boxes, and I gotta tell you there were so many, into a very small keepsake box that I can actually look at without feeling overwhelmed by the sheer volume of keepsakes. And I could easily ship that small keepsake box overseas to the new life I had decided would be mine.

Here's the thing about clutter in all of its forms that I want you to remember. It keeps us stuck and it drains our energy, and by decluttering, you make room for the future you.

Decluttering your mind means letting go of limiting beliefs and old stories that no longer serve you. Decluttering your emotions means processing and releasing emotions that keep you stuck. Decluttering your physical space means creating a home environment that energizes and inspires you. Decluttering your circle of influence means surrounding yourself with people who lift you up and support your growth. Decluttering your time means being intentional about how you spend your time and focusing on activities that align with your goals and values.

 All of these things will help you build your SELF Wealth because all of these things are the signal to yourself that you matter, that the life you want matters. And you taking action to make room for that confirms your belief in your worth and your ability to have this life you want.

So take a look around at your space and your life. What can you let go of today to make room for building your SELF Wealth? And remember, decluttering is not an overnight event and nor is it a one-time event. I declutter these days on a regular basis. I encourage you to start small but be consistent and watch how the act of decluttering transforms your life, my friend.

By investing into these five areas – coaching and mentorship, daily mindset work through journaling, daily self-care, setting healthy boundaries, and decluttering – I was able to rebuild my SELF Wealth and with it, set out to create a life free of my shoulds. These investments helped me to become the woman I am today. A woman who lives a life she loves and continues to say YES! to herself and her dream every single day.

I may have learned how to reinvent myself and my world, going from a millionaire's maid to a self-made millionaire, but having SELF Wealth is what made my life finally feel successful in the most expensive ways imaginable. And it is what makes me feel like I matter, my life matters, and my days matter. It is the ultimate ingredient in leading a meaningful and fulfilling life.

Let me leave you with this. Saying YES! to you and investing into your SELF to build your SELF Wealth is the best investment you can ever make in your lifetime, my friend. So which one of these five ways will you begin your journey to SELF Wealth with today?

That's it for this episode. Join me next Wednesday for another conversation about creating a life you love.

Until then, be the woman who says YES!

Hey, want to know what's stopping you from saying YES! to you and a life you love?

Head over to https://selfcreationschool.com/yesblock and take my FREE 60 second quiz to find out what's standing in your way today and I'll send you my Self-Creation Shift process for shifting it. That's https://selfcreationschool.com/yesblock. I’ll see you there.

One of the things we as women tend to buy into is investing all of our time and energy into our SHOULDS and leaving no time to invest into our SELF. And I'm talking about shoulds like putting everyone else's needs and happiness before your own. Ticking off the boxes of success that you believe you should tick in order to be accepted, approved of and valued by others.

Shoulds like always having it all together, maintaining a perfect household, meeting societal beauty standards, balancing career and family flawlessly, always being available and accommodating, and perhaps even suppressing your own ambitions to support others. And so on, and so on, and so on.

We mistakenly believe that all of these shoulds will lead us to a happy and fulfilling life. What we don't realize is that catering to shoulds will almost always require that you shrink your most authentic SELF, that you shrink your truest dreams, and settle for far less than you deserve or that you are capable of. And shoulds are one of the greatest depletors of SELF Wealth that I know of.

Here's what else I know. When we fail to invest into our SELF first and foremost, and we allow our SELF Wealth to be gradually depleted through our conformity to who we believe we should be and how we believe our life should be, eventually we wind up feeling insignificant in our own lives, feeling forgotten or overlooked, bored, lost, overwhelmed, and physically and emotionally drained or burnt out.

We wake up one day finding that, while we have successfully fulfilled all of our shoulds, we have unsuccessfully fulfilled ourselves. Which leaves us feeling deeply unsatisfied with our lives, and in particular, with our who we are being in our lives.

The problem is having spent so long saying YES! to your shoulds and NO to yourself, when it comes to that line-in-the-sand moment in time when you decide that you will no longer settle for coming second place to everyone and everything else in your world, you will no longer live according to your shoulds, we tend to feel a lot of guilt about putting ourselves first. Shame or embarrassment for feeling the way we feel despite everything we have. And self-doubt about stepping out of the shadows of our own life, admitting we want something different, and claiming the spotlight on our own terms.

And sometimes, we turn to telling ourselves should not stories, and we can stay stuck there for years. Stories like, we shouldn't be unhappy, unfulfilled, dissatisfied. We shouldn't want more than we have. We shouldn't rock the boat of our stable lives or upset the apple cart. We shouldn't feel the way we feel, and we definitely shouldn't change. I stayed there for far too long myself and I gotta tell you, these should nots are just as big a drain on your SELF Wealth as your shoulds.

When I finally decided I wanted to say YES! to me and a life that I would love to live every moment of, I had run up a huge deficit in my SELF Wealth bank account. And because I knew that everything I wanted was an inside job, it started within, in my SELF, investing into my SELF and rebuilding my SELF Wealth was an absolute priority when I started out on this new chapter in my life.

So, today I want to share with you the five investments I made into my SELF at that time that really helped me fast-track rebuilding my SELF Wealth and in turn, becoming the kind of woman who lives a life she loves.

My friend, investing into your SELF to build your SELF Wealth is the best investment you can ever make in your lifetime. So let's talk about five powerful ways you can do just that.

Welcome to The Self-Creation School podcast, for women who are ready to ditch mediocrity, step up and get more of what they want, and finally say YES! to a life that sets their soul on fire. I'm your host Leanne Letica, Self-Creation Coach, founder of The Self-Creation School AND Queen of YES!. If you're ready to play life by your own personal rule book, and give yourself permission to say YES! to yourself and your wildest dreams, this podcast is the place for you.

Welcome to another episode of The Self-Creation School Podcast, where I share my self-creation secrets to help you create a life you love waking up to every single day. I am so glad you are listening in today because the things I want to share with you have helped me completely transform my world.

If you've been hanging out with me for any length of time, you will have probably either read or heard me share my story. But for those of you who are just discovering me or this podcast for the first time, let me give you the nuts and bolts to help you understand what led me to my line-in-the-sand moment and needing to rebuild my SELF Wealth.

I started out in my early twenties as a single mum. My first husband left when my daughter was six weeks old, and he kindly left me not just holding the baby bundle, but also our bundle of debt, to the tune of around $50,000.

At the time I had no job, I had quit my job to have my daughter. And I needed to earn a living fast, but I also needed to be able to set my hours. It was a really tall order back then, and so I ended up cleaning homes of multi-millionaires who paid me very well for my perfectionist tendencies and attention to detail.

It was during this time I started battling an eating disorder because after years of yo-yo dieting and struggling with my weight, I told myself at all costs now that I was a single mum with extra baggage, I needed to make sure that I stayed super slim and trim, or no man would ever look twice at me again.

My health spiraled out of control pretty fast and well, life wasn't all that much fun. I had debt collectors constantly at my door, some weeks just $8.00 left over to buy food. And I came very close to declaring bankruptcy and giving up on myself basically. I was definitely not making a success of my life.

But then I met my now husband, and he introduced me to the power of choosing my story. Of deciding what I thought about myself and my life, how I showed up in my world, and what reality I wanted to experience. Of deciding whether I wanted to stay a victim of my circumstances or be a creator of my world. I didn't have to stay where I had been planted and he inspired me to see that everything is possible if you dare to believe that it is.

Now at that time, as I said, I was cleaning homes of multi-millionaires by day and in dating my husband, I began hanging out in the homes and playgrounds of multi-millionaires by night. Eventually, I had to decide what world I wanted to live in. And no surprise, especially given my own track record, I decided I wanted to learn everything I could from these successful people and follow in their path, because it seemed to me, they had it all figured out.

And I thought that ticking all of the same boxes these millionaires had ticked, that I would have it made, I would be happy, and I would be someone of value. I would matter like these people seem to matter. I would have their confidence, their self-belief, their lack of care for anyone's opinions but their own. At least it looked that way on the surface anyway. The truth that I've since discovered is quite different.

So I went about ticking the boxes. I redefined what I believed was possible for me. I reinvented who I saw myself as and the life I saw myself living. And essentially rewrote the rules for what was meant to happen for women like me, a single mom, cleaning to scratch together a living. And as I elevated my identity and what I believed was possible for me in my world, I completely changed my story and my success.

And for a long time, I thought I had this thing down pat. I was checking off all the boxes that define success, and therefore I was a success, and my life was a success. I had the marriage, the kids, the home, the business, the lifestyle, the travel, you name it, I ticked it. But as the years went by, I had this lingering feeling like there was something I was missing.

The reality was none of these shoulds that I had successfully ticked off were actually making me feel happy or fulfilled. I felt invisible in my life. I felt like I didn't matter. And that at the end of the day, my life didn't matter. And because I felt so ungrateful and ashamed to admit this, I tried to deny these feelings for many years, all the while beating myself up for feeling this way, blaming myself and how I really was still such a failure at this thing called life. I mean, if I couldn't be happy with this kind of life, who was I, right? How could I ever be happy? I told myself I didn't deserve to be.

Eventually, I couldn't face myself in the mirror because my look of self-loathing was all too much. I really felt like I was living a lie. Like I was some kind of imposter in this life, and my real life was, well, who knew where. I didn't like an inch of who I was being, and I felt so empty inside, drained by keeping up the appearances of my supposedly successful life, and ever so lonely in that life because I couldn't bring myself to share my real experience of it.

And I knew things couldn't go on like this another day, let alone for the second half of my life. Something had to change and that something started with me. Because here's what I learned the hard way. Despite my success, despite going from being that almost bankrupt, single mom, clearing the homes of multi-millionaires to becoming a millionaire, no amount of net wealth could buy me the SELF Wealth I was so very depleted of. I had created all of my success by ticking off shoulds that I thought would finally make me feel accepted, approved of, valued, like I mattered, like I was worthy, and they didn’t.

I learned that only I could give myself the gift of mattering. And to do that, I needed to pull that me out of the shadows and become the star of my own show. I had to redefine what success actually meant to me, the kind of success that would make me feel happy, fulfilled, proud, and accomplished. I had to challenge the status quo and have the courage to rock the boat of life as I knew it.

And I knew all of that was going to demand a whole lot of SELF Wealth that I didn't even have a scrap of. And so this is why I started right there.

So let me share with you the five things I invested into to rebuild my SELF Wealth bank balance and I still invest into every single day so that I can become SELF Wealthier and reach out for even bigger and bolder dreams.

The number one thing I did was to find a coach to guide and support me.

I have had many coaches and mentors over the years, mostly however in those earlier years when I elevated my identity and in turn my reality. When I look back on my life, there was a direct correlation between the years I had a coach and my ability to create change and the years I didn't, where if I'm honest, my mindset led my reality into a downward spiral more often than not.

So for me, I understood the impact working with a coach can have and this is the first thing I set out to do. I also immersed myself in podcasts, books and anything I could do to fill my mind with inspiration, motivation, and the courage to go forth just one more day on my path to YES!.

The second thing I did was I started journaling again.

Now I have journaled a lot in my earlier days, but not so much in my 30s and early 40s. I kind of let it fall to the wayside. And again, I found it interesting looking back at the connection between my mindset, my ability to create change, and putting pen to paper. So I knew journaling was also going to play a very big role in me moving forward.

And I actually started out this whole process of transforming my life with a two-week boot camp with just myself and my journal. Literally from nine to five, it was me with a pen in hand. Pretty extreme perhaps, but I was in an extreme place at the time.

During those two weeks, I had some very deep conversations with myself about my SELF. About my life, my fears, my regrets, my dreams, and my hopes for the future. Honest and deeply insightful conversations without the judgment and criticism I had gotten used to beating myself up with. Just letting what felt like a lifetime of thoughts all flow out and onto paper so that I could try and make sense of things.

From there, I started journaling about what could be possible. I started imagining a different life, imagining a different me, and essentially using my journal to live in the question of what could be, if I let go of what should be and allowed it to be. In that way, journaling helped me to see that permission to ditch my shoulds and say YES! to me and I life my love was going to be an important part of my journey. And through continuing to journal daily after those initial two weeks, I was gradually able to give myself that permission.

Journaling also helped me look at my limiting stories, particularly around how I saw myself. It helped me identify how what I believed about myself and my place in the world was depleting my SELF Wealth. And you may have heard me say this, it is only through awareness that change becomes possible.

Journaling also helped me to identify my core values, my passions, figure out my purpose in life, what standards I was tolerating and accepting that were not serving me. What standards I needed to raise in order to reinvent myself and my life, and in particular, to nurture my SELF Wealth.

And vitally, journaling helped me tap into how I was feeling, why I was feeling that way, and to take my feelings and my life off autopilot. To take control of my life experience in every moment.

Over time, journaling allowed me to collect a bank of evidence for how I could be the me I wanted to be and how I could create a life I love. Every piece of evidence I collected was a deposit into my SELF Wealth bank account. A deposit of self-confidence, self-belief, self-trust.

So there are a lot of ways that a simple journal, putting pen to paper and having a conversation with yourself, can have a significant impact on your life and in building your SELF Wealth.

Moving on to number three. I invested into daily non-negotiable self-care.

Listen, I know so many women struggle with this, and I really did too. Putting ourselves last on the list often means neglecting ourselves in the process. Not spending the time or money on ourselves because we believe that the time or money can be better spent elsewhere. So we neglect our physical health, our mental health, our emotional health, our spiritual health, our physical appearance.

The morning I had my line-in-the-sand moment, I couldn't even recall the last time I took myself for a haircut. It was actually 12 months. Admittedly, I have long curly hair that hid a lot of sins, at least back then anyway, but 12 months was a ridiculously long time to go between haircuts. So you can imagine how else I might have been neglecting myself. Now, for me, this wasn't a question of money or time, but my worthiness to invest this money and time into me.

And when we neglect ourselves over many years, what happens is, we suddenly hit midlife and our body starts undergoing its own changes. And suddenly our tiredness becomes really apparent, our skin starts to show signs of aging, we start to gain some extra weight, we start to feel frumpy. We start to look like we've let ourselves go because, well, we have. And our midlife years expose in full how it is we've been caring for ourselves over the years. There is nowhere to hide in those midlife years.

Self-care is also about having self-respect. It's about caring enough about yourself to look after yourself first and foremost before everyone else. It's about showing yourself self-love, showing yourself that you matter and that you deserve to invest the time and money into taking good care of yourself in all the ways I just mentioned.

So with the encouragement of my coach and through journaling, I looked at all the ways I felt like I was neglecting myself and how I could take better care of myself. I decided what was non-negotiable moving forward and started implementing that into my daily routine. Then gradually, I added more self-care in more aspects of my life as I became comfortable with my non-negotiables.

Now, my three non-negotiables were speaking kindly to myself – that is a form of self-care, self-love, and self-respect by the way – allowing myself daily journal time for my mental and emotional health and taking physical care of my body. From hydrating myself sufficiently every day to rejoining my Pilates classes, to those regular haircuts, facials, and so forth.

And I used a lot of environmental cues to help ensure that I stopped to take care of myself in the ways that I said I would every single day. Leaving my gym clothes out where I honestly couldn't miss them. Turning music on as I showered to help lift my mood and motivate me to spend the time to make that extra effort to do my hair and makeup and dress well, not for my world but for me. Buying a beautiful water jug for my desk to encourage me to fill it every day and keep myself hydrated. Setting the table at night with a beautiful tablescape to encourage me to prepare a healthy meal and sit long enough to enjoy it.

Doing that actually helped me to reconnect with my husband in ways that we hadn't connected for years. A simple candle placed on a well-set table that demanded the respect of our time. Now, reconnecting with my husband in this way felt like a form of self-care. It felt like I was looking after my emotional health. And, quite honestly, it was a turning point in our near divorce marriage. Little things can have big impacts, my friend.

So invest in your self-care and you will also invest into your SELF Wealth.

The fourth thing I invested into was setting healthy boundaries, both with myself and with others.

I hope you can see how a lot of these things I'm sharing with you feed into each other because it was through journaling that I could establish what boundaries I lacked and where I would be well served by setting boundaries in place. And by showing myself that I mattered through taking better care of me, I affirmed my worthiness to protect my time, my mindset, my emotional well-being by no longer tolerating or accepting things that depleted my SELF Wealth.

Now, this was a very hard one for me, and I know it is for many women, maybe for you too. Boundaries can bring up a whole lot of fear, fear of upsetting people, being judged, frowned upon, rejected. They can be super hard to implement, especially if you're really lacking in boundaries or you're a big people pleaser, like I was. And so this is where you will find the guidance and support of a coach invaluable.

The thing with boundaries is that when you do put them in place and uphold them, they can supercharge your SELF Wealth like nothing else. Boundaries are the ultimate form of self-respect, and standing firm in what you will and will no longer tolerate and accept for yourself and from your world will have a significance impact on your self-confidence, self-acceptance, self-trust, self-belief, self-love. So, so many of those SELF things are positively impacted by setting an upholding boundaries.

Now again, some of those boundaries are going to be with yourself. Like for me, no longer tolerating or accepting speaking harshly to myself. No longer accepting my shoulds as the only way or the highway. Making it non-negotiable that I take care of myself in the ways that I planned, and so putting in place a boundary that my time to do that will not be compromised.

Some other examples might be getting sufficient rest, limiting your work hours to protect your family time or your leisure time, setting digital boundaries, communicating your needs to others clearly and treating them to be as valuable as everyone else's. And so on and so forth.

And some of those boundaries are going to be with other people. Maybe your spouse or partner, your children, your extended family, your boss, your friends. It could be things like having them respect your time, delegating tasks more fairly between members of the household. It could be saying no to the extra commitments that are always assumed of you. Saying no to social events that just don't interest you, even though your best friend loves them. It could be no longer allowing unsolicited advice or criticism. Spending less time with people who drain you physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Particularly when you are trying to rebuild your SELF Wealth, surrounding yourself with people who lift you up, who support you and who act as energy givers rather than takers, is going to be very important. And so if you are like most people, you are going to have to limit the time you spend with some key people that you likely have felt very obligated to spend time with over the years, despite how they drain you and leave you feeling about yourself.

Although remember you do get to decide what you make everything mean. So that nasty comment your Uncle Harry always passes on every time you see him, you get to decide what you make that mean and whether to even make it mean anything at all. Maybe Uncle Harry is just being Uncle Harry and he says the same things to everyone.

So while it is best to remove yourself or limit the time you spend with people who drain you, sometimes that isn't possible, and you'll need to remember that you are in control of your thoughts and therefore your emotions. That is actually a topic for a whole other episode, but the key here is you get to decide what you make everything mean. It doesn't excuse Uncle Harry's rude comments, but it can stop at simply that. A passing comment that doesn't need to mean anything about you.

And listen, with everything I'm sharing with you here, I want you to remember that this is not an overnight process. You can throw a whole heap of mud at a wall and it's not all going to stick, right? So it's better to gradually build up the layers of mud until you finally cover the wall. So like this, it's far better to take these concepts I'm sharing with you and do the work day by day, piece by piece, layer by layer, just one step at a time.

I promise it will all come together so much faster than you think because as you start to have small wins, like setting a small boundary with yourself, you build your self-confidence to set those bigger boundaries. And as you build more and more SELF Wealth with every single day and every small change you make, you start to be able to tackle those bigger things more easily and with far less emotional fallout.

Again, having the support of a coach is going to be super helpful here to help you stay on track and deal with the emotional setbacks along the way as, not just others react to you suddenly deciding to claim the leading lady role in your own life story and stop playing their support act, but your storyteller also reacts and tries to pull you back into life as you know it.

Invest into a coach, invest into a journal and daily journal time, invest into taking care of yourself before you take care of anyone else, and invest into establishing healthy boundaries that support you in being true to you and a life that will light you up every single day.

Which brings me to the final thing I invested into, which is decluttering.

Decluttering my mind, my emotions, my beliefs, my limiting stories, my circle of influence, my physical space, how I spent my time. I invested a lot of time in decluttering, and it was quite honestly one of the most liberating things I have ever done.

We all hang on to stuff, old beliefs, old ways of being, familiar emotions, familiar people, familiar routines, boxes of memories, clothes that don't fit or even suit who we are right now, let alone who we want to be. When we hold onto these things, they keep us stuck in the past and prevent us from moving forward.

So I spent a lot of time looking at all the things in my life that felt like they were freeloaders, taking up space and paying me no rent, meaning they were not contributing to my SELF Wealth.

I definitely spent a lot of time decluttering my stories and old beliefs through journaling. As I implemented my boundaries, I cleared up a lot of unproductive time. Time sometimes simply dwelling after the fact in a negative energy that some people seem to always instill in me.

I donated 75 percent of my wardrobe. A wardrobe that reminded me every day of the woman that I was no longer and how my body had changed. A wardrobe that served as a source of self-judgment, self-criticism, as a reminder of how I had let myself go. In doing so, I made room for the clothes that made me shine as the woman I wanted to become, the future me. Clothes that made me feel good about myself and enjoy getting dressed every day. Which is a great energy to start the day in.

I donated most of my book collection. Books that told me I needed fixing. I didn't need fixing, I needed creating. These books were taking up space that other books that supported me in creating myself and my life could take up. Books that inspired me, motivated me, rather than told me all the ways I was somehow broken. Like me, you are not broken either, and you do not need fixing. You are perfect as you are, and there's a new version of you waiting for you that is even more perfect for the life you want to live.

And I also went through boxes, and I do mean boxes upon boxes, of my past. You know what I mean, right? All those memories and keepsakes we hold onto. The ticket stubs, the past travel itineraries, the childhood moments like your first locket of hair, the sporting trophies and ribbons from your school days, your preschool paintings, and a ton of stuff that if you ever went through these boxes, you'd realize you have no recollection what they even mean.

Now, I am very much a memories girl, don't get me wrong. For years, I kept every champagne cork that we popped on our anniversary, and I even made my husband search through the bushes one year to find the cork he popped in that direction before I had a chance to tell him I wanted to keep it. I know, I am special. But all of this stuff was keeping me locked in my past. It was confirming to me who I had been, not affirming to me who I could be.

The thing I realized too in going through everything I owned, but in particular these boxes of memories, was that I was keepsaking a lot of things that my mother had kept keepsaked, or even my grandmother. And the only reason I was keepsaking them was because I felt like I should. I felt obligated to respect my mother and grandmother and their efforts in maintaining these memories for me even though many of them actually had no meaning for me.

When I let go of my should around this, I compiled all of those boxes, and I gotta tell you there were so many, into a very small keepsake box that I can actually look at without feeling overwhelmed by the sheer volume of keepsakes. And I could easily ship that small keepsake box overseas to the new life I had decided would be mine.

Here's the thing about clutter in all of its forms that I want you to remember. It keeps us stuck and it drains our energy, and by decluttering, you make room for the future you.

Decluttering your mind means letting go of limiting beliefs and old stories that no longer serve you. Decluttering your emotions means processing and releasing emotions that keep you stuck. Decluttering your physical space means creating a home environment that energizes and inspires you. Decluttering your circle of influence means surrounding yourself with people who lift you up and support your growth. Decluttering your time means being intentional about how you spend your time and focusing on activities that align with your goals and values.

 All of these things will help you build your SELF Wealth because all of these things are the signal to yourself that you matter, that the life you want matters. And you taking action to make room for that confirms your belief in your worth and your ability to have this life you want.

So take a look around at your space and your life. What can you let go of today to make room for building your SELF Wealth? And remember, decluttering is not an overnight event and nor is it a one-time event. I declutter these days on a regular basis. I encourage you to start small but be consistent and watch how the act of decluttering transforms your life, my friend.

By investing into these five areas – coaching and mentorship, daily mindset work through journaling, daily self-care, setting healthy boundaries, and decluttering – I was able to rebuild my SELF Wealth and with it, set out to create a life free of my shoulds. These investments helped me to become the woman I am today. A woman who lives a life she loves and continues to say YES! to herself and her dream every single day.

I may have learned how to reinvent myself and my world, going from a millionaire's maid to a self-made millionaire, but having SELF Wealth is what made my life finally feel successful in the most expensive ways imaginable. And it is what makes me feel like I matter, my life matters, and my days matter. It is the ultimate ingredient in leading a meaningful and fulfilling life.

Let me leave you with this. Saying YES! to you and investing into your SELF to build your SELF Wealth is the best investment you can ever make in your lifetime, my friend. So which one of these five ways will you begin your journey to SELF Wealth with today?

That's it for this episode. Join me next Wednesday for another conversation about creating a life you love.

Until then, be the woman who says YES!

Hey, want to know what's stopping you from saying YES! to you and a life you love?

Head over to https://selfcreationschool.com/yesblock and take my FREE 60 second quiz to find out what's standing in your way today and I'll send you my Self-Creation Shift process for shifting it. That's https://selfcreationschool.com/yesblock. I’ll see you there.