Have you ever felt like the real you is lost somewhere in the noise and chaos of this thing we call life? You're simply going through the motions every single day, constantly juggling your roles and responsibilities to tick all the boxes you need to tick and live up to what's expected of you. Every day blurs into the next and every morning you wake up dreading yet another day that simply doesn't float your boat.

It's not necessarily that you're unhappy with what you've got going on in your life, but you're not exactly feeling enthused or all that excited about it either. And can we be honest? You're tired of the same old monotonous mediocre existence, am I right? It all feels so cookie cutter and you've lost sight of what makes you uniquely you. What lights you up and makes you feel happy, alive and thriving.

Here's the thing. Ever since you started on this adulting business, you've likely been playing the career role, the loving wife role, maybe the doting motherhood role, the good daughter role, the supportive sibling role, the caring friend role, and so on and so on and so on.

You have been so busy being all these things, you've forgotten what it's like to be you. Just you. Maybe, you never even had the chance to find out. And listen, as women, we are wired this way. We are wired to brush ourselves aside to sweep our wants, needs and desires under the carpet and shrink who we be as an individual in order to successfully step into this collective of roles that life demands of us.

Then we get carried away by the years until somewhere along the way, we realize, we have lost sight of who we are outside all of the roles we play. It's usually when you reach that point that you start to wonder if this is how your life is meant to be. Surely, there's more to it than this. And surely you, the real you, is meant to make an appearance.

Today I want to propose to you that YES!, the real you is meant to be the star of your show. The real you is meant to matter. Your unique wants, needs and desires are meant to matter. And your every day is meant to feel like it matters. You are worthy and deserving of playing the role of you first and foremost and creating a life where who you be and how you be her makes your every day feel rich and rewarding.

Let's talk about how you can find you in the maze of life.

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.

Well, here we are again, my friend. Hello and welcome. I am so happy to have you join me today for a conversation that I hope will inspire you to say YES! to the real you and the kind of life that does float your boat. If you are joining me for the very first time, this podcast is the place where I share my insights, tips and strategies for becoming a woman who has created a life you love waking up to every single day.

So today, I want to share with you my thoughts and ideas for finding the you who has maybe been waiting in the shadows of your life playing the support act in everyone else's lives and helping you take center stage so you can finally celebrate you for the amazing woman that you are.

I know what it feels like to lose sight of yourself and the things that make you feel like your life is more than just a maze of same old, same old days. To feel like you, whoever you actually are, that you are invisible in your own life.

I also know that losing sight of yourself erodes not just your sense of self-identity, but it depletes your SELF Wealth bank balance faster than a Black Friday shopping spree. And I'm talking here about all those SELF things like self-worth, self-confidence, self-belief, and so on.

One of the dangers with this is that when the roles you play in your life evolve, change, or perhaps cease altogether – like when the kids leave home, you experience a relationship breakup or perhaps you lose a partner, or maybe you're made redundant from your career and so on – you don't have a strong sense of self-identity to fall back on.

So it tends to leave a big gaping hole that you are at a loss to know how to fill and you don't have the SELF things to back you up that you need to go about filling it. It can be a very overwhelming place to find yourself.

The other danger with this is when you don't have a healthy bank balance of SELF Wealth and a strong sense of self-identity, you turn a look outside of you to all of the roles you play to validate yourself. To validate your value and worthiness. To confirm that you are loved, accepted, respected and appreciated. And whenever you outsource your own validation, you place yourself in the hands of other people who may or may not be able to provide that validation you need or provide it reliably.

You are the best placed person to give you all of the validation, love, approval, respect and appreciation and so on that you want and to do so reliably, without fail, no matter what role you may or may not be fulfilling in your life. But it requires a strong sense of self-identity and a healthy SELF Wealth bank balance. And we are talking about being an independently SELF Wealthy woman here, my friend, and I do not mean money.

Now, as I mentioned a few moments ago, as women, we are wired to sacrifice ourselves to others. We are wired to neglect our own needs, wants and desires, to tend to ourselves last, if at all, and to hold ourselves to ridiculously high standards of being able to juggle it all and juggle it all flawlessly and juggle it all without complaint.

So when it comes to suddenly putting ourselves first, to acknowledging our wants, needs and desires, and to maybe saying no to some of the things we've been juggling to make room for ourselves to take up space in our life, it can be very challenging to give yourself permission to do that. Which is why one of the first things I want to offer you today is the invitation to give yourself permission to say YES! to you.

To not only saying YES! to you, but to say YES! to you claiming the leading lady role in your own life story. To say YES! to doing the work to rediscover who it is you are and who it is you are capable of becoming in your lifetime if you will allow yourself to step into the limelight and explore every possibility for yourself. And to say YES! to doing the mindset work around saying this YES!.

Because here's what I know to be true. The very act of saying YES!, I want something different or that YES!, I want the real me to matter, to take up space and shine, that can bring up all kinds of stories and emotions for you that can stop you taking this any further and instead make you resign yourself to simply settling for less than you know deep down you desire or that you do deserve, my friend.

Emotions like feeling guilty for wanting more, ashamed or embarrassed to admit that what you have already isn't enough or isn't fulfilling you in the way that you need. Feeling like a failure for not enjoying your life or being fulfilled by your life like you've been led to believe you should.

It can make you feel a whole lot of fear about being judged, disapproved of, fear of the real you not being enough. Fear of upsetting the apple cart or rocking the boat in your nice stable life, even if it is boring you to tears. Fear of risking a successful career to do the things you're passionate about or to pursue something you feel driven to do. Fear of hurting others if they feel like they are not enough for you. And a whole lot more.

And all of these emotions are likely coming from the long running stories that you've been telling yourself that your life needs to look a certain way. That you should tick all of the boxes you've been told to tick, and you should be happy doing so. You shouldn't make yourself the center of attention, you shouldn't reach beyond what everyone else has or does. You should just play it nice and safe and blend in with everyone else so that people around you don't feel like you think you're better than them.

And even deeper stories like you shouldn't kid yourself that you can matter. You shouldn't dare to believe you're worthy of more. You know the real you isn't good enough, who do you think you are anyway, right?

And if you don't learn how to manage your mindset around all of this, to clean up your emotions and rewrite your stories, you will simply get back into your box and pull the lid closed. Because it will feel so much safer and easier to do that in the short term. But it will cost you a life you love living in the long term, and I promise you, that will be an even bigger price to pay.

So, with all of that said, let me give you some tips on, firstly, how to go about giving yourself permission to say YES!. Secondly, some strategies for reacquainting yourself with the real you. And lastly, I'll give you some resources that will help manage your mindset, clean up your emotions and rewrite your stories.

Let's start with permission.

If you've heard me talk about this or share my story, you will already know that permission is where it all had to start for me and it is where it starts for so, so many women when they draw that line in the sand and decide it's time to stop simply living life and start loving life to the fullest.

And because we are so used to denying ourselves on so many levels, giving ourselves permission to take up space, to take the leading lady role in our life, to not just claim our wants, needs and desires, but go after them, can feel like an impossible task. The reality is, it doesn't have to be as hard as we make it, like a lot of things we make hard.

Giving yourself permission is really just a decision. A decision that you will give it. Now I know, and boy how I know, you are thinking wait a minute Leanne, I am the world's worst decision maker. I can have just one option and have trouble deciding if that's the right option for me. I mean, what if it's not, right?

If this is you, and I get it, I want you to understand that you are capable of making a decision. You likely decided what to eat for breakfast this morning. You likely decided to brush your teeth and comb your hair. You likely decided to get dressed for work and take your kids to school. You likely even decided to lock the front door on your way out.

My friend, you are a decision maker in hiding. You make more decisions every day than you can even begin to imagine. So this story of not being able to decide simply isn't true. It's not true. It's not a fact. Can we agree on that? It's not a fact that you can't make a single decision. So since this isn't a fact, can we also agree that while making a decision you're not used to making might cause you discomfort, it isn't impossible. Can we agree on that too?

And here's what I want you to understand about your discomfort. You get to decide that too. You get to decide to feel the discomfort and retreat back to what you know, or to switch that out for something better, like determination, or excitement, or whatever more positive emotion feels right to you, and create something different for yourself.

I will share with you in a moment how you can do that, but right now I want you to understand that staying stuck in indecision, because making a decision causes you discomfort, is in fact a decision. Not deciding is a decision. You have to decide not to decide. And my question to you is this. What is your decision to be a woman who is undecided costing you?

My good friend Jim Rohn used to say this, and I share this often because it has made such a profound difference in my life. For things to change, you have to change. For things to be different, you have to be different. And my friend, being someone different starts with a decision, a decision that you will be someone different.

And that means giving yourself permission right here, right now, to make that decision and say YES! to finding the real you and allowing her to shine bright. Giving yourself permission does not need to be any harder than saying YES!, I give myself permission. That's it. The stories, the emotions, there may be some work to do to clean them up, but the act of giving yourself permission is a simple act.

Now if you need to, and many women do find this helpful, write yourself a permission slip. I know it may sound a little cliché, but trust me, it works. Write yourself a note of permission that you will allow yourself to say YES! to you.

Say YES! to being whoever it is you discover you want to be, because after all, that is your inherent right. Say YES! to wanting whatever it is you discover you want, simply because you want it and whether or not you choose to even go after it, by the way. Just allowing yourself to want what you want, irrespective of whether you actually want to make that happen.

And to say YES! to this process, everything else aside, the judgment, the criticism, the shoulds, the stories, the ifs, the buts. Put it all aside for now and just give yourself permission to explore this process. To make finding you in the maze of life matter.

Okay, so let's move on. How can you even begin to look for the real you in this maze of life?

Let me say firstly, there is no wrong or right way to go about this, and there is no cookie cutter one way to do so either. But I want to offer you some tips that I found helpful in the past, and I know have been very helpful for a lot of other women as well.

So here's tip number one.

I talked earlier about losing ourselves in the noise and chaos of life, which often shows up as our days blurring together in this overwhelming schedule of busyness, leaving no time for you. Now, busyness is very often a guise for not wanting to say YES! to you and make you matter, but that is a topic for a whole other episode.

My tip for you is this, start this process by quietening the noise and the chaos. Create some space in your day for white space, as I like to call it. Time where you don't need to think about anything or anyone, including you by the way. And I know this sounds a little counterintuitive when we are talking about finding you but go with me here. White space allows you to dampen all of the noise and chaos that comes from both outside of you and within, so that eventually you'll be able to hear yourself, see yourself and find yourself in your life.

So, set some time aside just starting with five to ten minutes to sit quietly and not force yourself to think about anything or anyone, but rather try to think about nothing at first. Use this space to clear your mind of the noise and chaos. To not have to be anyone for anyone or be anywhere. Use this space to take a breath, to pause, to reset and refresh your mind. It's like a quick reboot of your computer.

Now some women find listening to a meditation very helpful if their mind is particularly active. And meditation is a great way to get in touch with your inner self again over time. Some women find focusing on breathing exercises is very helpful. Whatever works for you. But I recommend setting time aside daily for this white space and do this until it becomes a natural part of your day.

Once you know how to quieten the noise and the chaos, then you are ready to take this work to the next level.

By the way, I have multiple white space time blocks on my calendar, something I thought in my own state of busyness some years ago would be an impossible task. Again, you get to decide to do this. To make it a priority, or not. It's completely up to you. But finding yourself is going to require spending time with yourself and quiet time with yourself to be able to tap into your innermost self and deepest desires.

Which is my second tip. Setting time aside for self-reflection. For journaling your thoughts, feelings and dreams, and asking yourself questions.

Questions like, what are my passions? What are the things that light me up within and stir happiness and fulfillment deep within my soul? What makes me feel truly alive? If I could do anything, knowing I couldn't fail, what is it I would want to do? What do I feel I must do before I leave this earth? What kind of woman do I want to be? What's important to me? What are the things I value? If I could create an everyday perfect day, what would that look like? And so on.

If you've never journaled before, you may find this difficult at first, but I encourage you to persevere. Again, just start small with a few minutes, and when that becomes a habit, dig a little deeper.

You could start by simply jotting down the small things you notice in your life. It could be things you do enjoy in your day, the people who do make a meaningful difference in your life, an environment that makes you feel warm and fuzzy emotions, positive emotions like peace, joy, happiness, expansiveness, light, and so on. It could be things that energize you, or it could be the things that you notice drain you.

This is all good information to know, because as I always say, you cannot change what you do not know exists. So every piece of information you gather about yourself and your life, what floats your boat and what doesn't, this is all extremely good information to know and to work with moving forward.

And when you are comfortable writing in your journal every day, no matter what it is you write, because let's just leave the pressures, remember that noise and chaos, aside so this process of finding you can unfold at its own pace unique to you.

There is no race here. There's no exact route that you must take. I bring you back to saying YES! to the process and allowing this all to happen for you in its own way. I promise if you commit to the process, the you that you seek will eventually be revealed.

Now once you have a journal happening, start to increase your time a little and add in those deeper questions about you and your life.

Journaling for me is a great way of simply living in the question without necessarily needing the answers or having to jump right in and commit to them. It's a way of exploring, reflecting, sitting with things to see what feels good, what feels true to you. And the thing about journaling is that it allows you to take all of your thoughts and feelings out of your head and dump them all onto paper. And that in itself is a fantastic way to create white space in your mind.

Now living in the question is actually my third tip for you.

When it comes to finding the real you after maybe having been lost for some time, you are not going to suddenly and magically get all the answers right away. There is going to be some trial and error, some trying things on to see how they fit, maybe making some adjustments, maybe throwing the ideas out altogether. This is very much what living in the question is all about. It's about recognizing your wants, needs and desires and trying them on for size.

What this means is that you also let go of needing everything to work out perfectly. You must let go of your preconceived ideas around trying things. Like I said, not everything you try on for size is going to be a good bit, and that is perfectly okay. Learn to accept that living in the question is about exploring the possibilities and finding answers. If the answer is no, this is not for you, great. If the answer is YES!, great. Every piece of information you gather is going to help you move forward in this process.

One thing that is common for many women going through this process is not wanting to make a mistake. Wanting to discover what it is they want, set a goal, and know that it is absolutely a goal that will light them up. And when it comes to opening the door on all of the possibilities for yourself again, there are likely going to be many things you'll want to do. So how do you know which one you should do, right? What if you choose the wrong one to focus on? YES!, what if? That's a great question to ask yourself.

What if you find out it's not the goal for you, it's not what you want? What if you do? What if you fail? But what if it's the greatest thing you ever do? This is living in the question, accepting there is no perfect choice. Accepting that you don't know what you don't know. Accepting all of the possible what ifs and trying it all on for size anyway.

I know for me, when I started this work again, I had narrowed down my very long list of dreams to the top three dreams. The first was creating a business that lit me up from the depths of my soul. I had no idea at the time what that was going to be, but I wanted the thing I do every day to have a meaningful impact on me and my world. The second dream was to move to Europe, and the third was to buy a yacht, learn to sail, and sail around the Mediterranean with my husband, spending lots of time in lots of places.

They were three fairly ambitious goals, at least for me, and ordinarily I would recommend choosing just one big goal at a time, which is what I did. And I chose to create a business that lit me up. And this is where I say allow things to unfold for you as they do. Life is what happens while you're planning life, right?

So you can follow the plan. You can go after the one big goal, fine. But what happened for me was that there were all these things happening in my life. My world was literally rearranging itself to take note of all these things I wanted, and the life experience I started allowing myself to believe was possible for me. And the opportunity for moving country suddenly presented itself, which meant the opportunity for buying a yacht and sailing around the Mediterranean also presented itself.

And instead of sticking to my guns and saying, well no, the focus is on goal number one only, and instead of buying into the story that I can't do it all, I decided to live in the question of all these things being a possibility at the same time. Now the fact that you are listening into this podcast is testament to me creating a business that truly makes me feel so alive and fulfilled. And if you've been listening in for a while or you know my story, you will also know that I moved to Europe where we have indeed been searching for our yacht.

So live in the question, release the pressure of needing to know or needing to get it right. Remember we are letting go of shoulds here, there are no rules. Allow the real you and the life she lives to slowly come into focus and importantly to evolve.

Expect too, that as you open the door and explore the possibilities, that you will have a lot of stories come to the surface. A lot of beliefs about yourself, and who you should be and the life you should live to come to the surface. And with that, a lot of emotions. Maybe like guilt, doubt, anxiety, nervousness, fear.

But the good news is, if you are indeed journaling regularly and you have that daily time set aside to have white space and reflect, to live in the question of you, you are well set up to rewrite your stories and those beliefs around your shoulds, for example, and clean up your emotions in the process.

And this is my fourth and final tip today.

As you seek to rediscover the real you and what it is you want, you will open the lid on some limiting stories and some negative emotions. I want you to accept and expect that this will happen because I promise you it will. Whenever you try to step outside the boundaries of what you know, of how you are used to existing, your brain is going to sense danger and trigger all kinds of stories to try and get you to step back in between the lines.

But if you truly want to be the star of your own show where the real you matters, your unique wants, needs, and desires matter, and your every day feels like it matters, you are going to need to step outside the lines into the unknown and feel the discomfort that comes with that, knowing that you can decide.

Remember you have that power and capability. You can decide to rewrite the stories you are telling yourself that don't support you moving forward to stories that do. You get to decide what you make everything mean and how you feel in every moment. You get to decide if you will continue to buy into your stories of should or create stories of could.

So how exactly do you rewrite your stories and clean up your emotions? Well again, since you are by now well versed in setting time aside to be with you, to journal, to self-reflect and live in the question, you are set up perfectly to deal with your stories and emotions.

Whenever you are feeling any strong negative emotions like anxiety or fear, for instance, take some white space. Pick up your journal to reflect and live in the question. I wonder what this emotion is telling me. Sit with your emotion and ask yourself, what story is playing inside my head right now? What story am I telling myself that is causing me to feel this way?

Then ask yourself, is this story serving you and is it really true? Is it the only truth available to you? Think about another possible story you could tell yourself instead, one that would help you feel more positive emotions. Then write down your new story in your journal and go about making that the story that runs on repeat inside your head.

Now, one of the tools I recommend to clean up your stories and emotions is my Self-Creation Shift process. It follows that very quick outline I just gave you in a nutshell, but it is a more step-by-step process. If you have already grabbed a copy of that, this is a great time to use it.

If you haven't, you can download a copy by taking my free YES! Block assessment over on my website. This is a free assessment designed to help you discover what's really stopping you from saying YES! to you and your dreams. Knowledge is power. So, I highly recommend taking the quiz if you haven't already taken it and I'll send you a copy of my Self-Creation Shift process. You'll find that link in the show notes.

The key thing I want you to remember in all of this is that you get to decide. You get to decide all of this. Don't give away your power to intentionally create a life you love by buying into the story that you have no choice or that you can't decide. There are some things we cannot control, it's true. But the things we've been talking about here today, you can control.

You get to decide that it's time for you to matter and be the star of your own show. You get to decide that what you want matters. You get to decide to challenge your norms, to stop living according to your shoulds, and decide for yourself the kind of life you want to live. You get to decide to give yourself permission for all of that, and that you are worthy and deserving of taking the time to do this work to find the real you in the maze of your life.

Before I close this episode out, I want to extend an invitation to you to join me in Week of YES!, which is my five part self-reflection course designed to help you give yourself permission, to see the possibilities, rediscover your passions and purpose, and create a personal playbook that you can use to help you stay on track to creating a life you'll love waking up to every single day.

Week of YES! used to be delivered over five days, hence the name Week of YES!, but it is now available in my course portal for you to be able to work through over the course of a week, a weekend, or at whatever pace is perfect for you. I have had almost 600 women go through the Week of YES!, and overwhelmingly, the feedback is that Week of YES! is the ultimate kickstart for saying YES! to you and saying YES! to a life you love.

You can find the link to Week of YES! in the show notes as well and I have a special deal right now for brand new members of Week of YES!. You can join me and kickstart this next chapter of you for just $97. That's a saving of almost 50%, my friend, but it is a limited time offer. So if you are ready to find you in the maze of life, and you'd like to really kickstart that process, check the show notes for a link to Week of YES! and I look forward to seeing you on the inside.

So, that's a wrap for today. Thanks so much for joining me and next week's episode will hit the airwaves on Wednesday morning just as I am hitting the ground in Istanbul for my summer vacay and cruise through Turkey and the Greek Islands. A vacation that is only possible because I became a woman who says YES!.

I am very excited to explore this part of the world and I can't wait for you to listen to the conversation I have planned next week. So stay tuned for that and I hope to see you around somewhere inside The Self-Creation School community sometime soon.

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.

Have you ever felt like the real you is lost somewhere in the noise and chaos of this thing we call life? You're simply going through the motions every single day, constantly juggling your roles and responsibilities to tick all the boxes you need to tick and live up to what's expected of you. Every day blurs into the next and every morning you wake up dreading yet another day that simply doesn't float your boat.

It's not necessarily that you're unhappy with what you've got going on in your life, but you're not exactly feeling enthused or all that excited about it either. And can we be honest? You're tired of the same old monotonous mediocre existence, am I right? It all feels so cookie cutter and you've lost sight of what makes you uniquely you. What lights you up and makes you feel happy, alive and thriving.

Here's the thing. Ever since you started on this adulting business, you've likely been playing the career role, the loving wife role, maybe the doting motherhood role, the good daughter role, the supportive sibling role, the caring friend role, and so on and so on and so on.

You have been so busy being all these things, you've forgotten what it's like to be you. Just you. Maybe, you never even had the chance to find out. And listen, as women, we are wired this way. We are wired to brush ourselves aside to sweep our wants, needs and desires under the carpet and shrink who we be as an individual in order to successfully step into this collective of roles that life demands of us.

Then we get carried away by the years until somewhere along the way, we realize, we have lost sight of who we are outside all of the roles we play. It's usually when you reach that point that you start to wonder if this is how your life is meant to be. Surely, there's more to it than this. And surely you, the real you, is meant to make an appearance.

Today I want to propose to you that YES!, the real you is meant to be the star of your show. The real you is meant to matter. Your unique wants, needs and desires are meant to matter. And your every day is meant to feel like it matters. You are worthy and deserving of playing the role of you first and foremost and creating a life where who you be and how you be her makes your every day feel rich and rewarding.

Let's talk about how you can find you in the maze of life.

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.

Well, here we are again, my friend. Hello and welcome. I am so happy to have you join me today for a conversation that I hope will inspire you to say YES! to the real you and the kind of life that does float your boat. If you are joining me for the very first time, this podcast is the place where I share my insights, tips and strategies for becoming a woman who has created a life you love waking up to every single day.

So today, I want to share with you my thoughts and ideas for finding the you who has maybe been waiting in the shadows of your life playing the support act in everyone else's lives and helping you take center stage so you can finally celebrate you for the amazing woman that you are.

I know what it feels like to lose sight of yourself and the things that make you feel like your life is more than just a maze of same old, same old days. To feel like you, whoever you actually are, that you are invisible in your own life.

I also know that losing sight of yourself erodes not just your sense of self-identity, but it depletes your SELF Wealth bank balance faster than a Black Friday shopping spree. And I'm talking here about all those SELF things like self-worth, self-confidence, self-belief, and so on.

One of the dangers with this is that when the roles you play in your life evolve, change, or perhaps cease altogether – like when the kids leave home, you experience a relationship breakup or perhaps you lose a partner, or maybe you're made redundant from your career and so on – you don't have a strong sense of self-identity to fall back on.

So it tends to leave a big gaping hole that you are at a loss to know how to fill and you don't have the SELF things to back you up that you need to go about filling it. It can be a very overwhelming place to find yourself.

The other danger with this is when you don't have a healthy bank balance of SELF Wealth and a strong sense of self-identity, you turn a look outside of you to all of the roles you play to validate yourself. To validate your value and worthiness. To confirm that you are loved, accepted, respected and appreciated. And whenever you outsource your own validation, you place yourself in the hands of other people who may or may not be able to provide that validation you need or provide it reliably.

You are the best placed person to give you all of the validation, love, approval, respect and appreciation and so on that you want and to do so reliably, without fail, no matter what role you may or may not be fulfilling in your life. But it requires a strong sense of self-identity and a healthy SELF Wealth bank balance. And we are talking about being an independently SELF Wealthy woman here, my friend, and I do not mean money.

Now, as I mentioned a few moments ago, as women, we are wired to sacrifice ourselves to others. We are wired to neglect our own needs, wants and desires, to tend to ourselves last, if at all, and to hold ourselves to ridiculously high standards of being able to juggle it all and juggle it all flawlessly and juggle it all without complaint.

So when it comes to suddenly putting ourselves first, to acknowledging our wants, needs and desires, and to maybe saying no to some of the things we've been juggling to make room for ourselves to take up space in our life, it can be very challenging to give yourself permission to do that. Which is why one of the first things I want to offer you today is the invitation to give yourself permission to say YES! to you.

To not only saying YES! to you, but to say YES! to you claiming the leading lady role in your own life story. To say YES! to doing the work to rediscover who it is you are and who it is you are capable of becoming in your lifetime if you will allow yourself to step into the limelight and explore every possibility for yourself. And to say YES! to doing the mindset work around saying this YES!.

Because here's what I know to be true. The very act of saying YES!, I want something different or that YES!, I want the real me to matter, to take up space and shine, that can bring up all kinds of stories and emotions for you that can stop you taking this any further and instead make you resign yourself to simply settling for less than you know deep down you desire or that you do deserve, my friend.

Emotions like feeling guilty for wanting more, ashamed or embarrassed to admit that what you have already isn't enough or isn't fulfilling you in the way that you need. Feeling like a failure for not enjoying your life or being fulfilled by your life like you've been led to believe you should.

It can make you feel a whole lot of fear about being judged, disapproved of, fear of the real you not being enough. Fear of upsetting the apple cart or rocking the boat in your nice stable life, even if it is boring you to tears. Fear of risking a successful career to do the things you're passionate about or to pursue something you feel driven to do. Fear of hurting others if they feel like they are not enough for you. And a whole lot more.

And all of these emotions are likely coming from the long running stories that you've been telling yourself that your life needs to look a certain way. That you should tick all of the boxes you've been told to tick, and you should be happy doing so. You shouldn't make yourself the center of attention, you shouldn't reach beyond what everyone else has or does. You should just play it nice and safe and blend in with everyone else so that people around you don't feel like you think you're better than them.

And even deeper stories like you shouldn't kid yourself that you can matter. You shouldn't dare to believe you're worthy of more. You know the real you isn't good enough, who do you think you are anyway, right?

And if you don't learn how to manage your mindset around all of this, to clean up your emotions and rewrite your stories, you will simply get back into your box and pull the lid closed. Because it will feel so much safer and easier to do that in the short term. But it will cost you a life you love living in the long term, and I promise you, that will be an even bigger price to pay.

So, with all of that said, let me give you some tips on, firstly, how to go about giving yourself permission to say YES!. Secondly, some strategies for reacquainting yourself with the real you. And lastly, I'll give you some resources that will help manage your mindset, clean up your emotions and rewrite your stories.

Let's start with permission.

If you've heard me talk about this or share my story, you will already know that permission is where it all had to start for me and it is where it starts for so, so many women when they draw that line in the sand and decide it's time to stop simply living life and start loving life to the fullest.

And because we are so used to denying ourselves on so many levels, giving ourselves permission to take up space, to take the leading lady role in our life, to not just claim our wants, needs and desires, but go after them, can feel like an impossible task. The reality is, it doesn't have to be as hard as we make it, like a lot of things we make hard.

Giving yourself permission is really just a decision. A decision that you will give it. Now I know, and boy how I know, you are thinking wait a minute Leanne, I am the world's worst decision maker. I can have just one option and have trouble deciding if that's the right option for me. I mean, what if it's not, right?

If this is you, and I get it, I want you to understand that you are capable of making a decision. You likely decided what to eat for breakfast this morning. You likely decided to brush your teeth and comb your hair. You likely decided to get dressed for work and take your kids to school. You likely even decided to lock the front door on your way out.

My friend, you are a decision maker in hiding. You make more decisions every day than you can even begin to imagine. So this story of not being able to decide simply isn't true. It's not true. It's not a fact. Can we agree on that? It's not a fact that you can't make a single decision. So since this isn't a fact, can we also agree that while making a decision you're not used to making might cause you discomfort, it isn't impossible. Can we agree on that too?

And here's what I want you to understand about your discomfort. You get to decide that too. You get to decide to feel the discomfort and retreat back to what you know, or to switch that out for something better, like determination, or excitement, or whatever more positive emotion feels right to you, and create something different for yourself.

I will share with you in a moment how you can do that, but right now I want you to understand that staying stuck in indecision, because making a decision causes you discomfort, is in fact a decision. Not deciding is a decision. You have to decide not to decide. And my question to you is this. What is your decision to be a woman who is undecided costing you?

My good friend Jim Rohn used to say this, and I share this often because it has made such a profound difference in my life. For things to change, you have to change. For things to be different, you have to be different. And my friend, being someone different starts with a decision, a decision that you will be someone different.

And that means giving yourself permission right here, right now, to make that decision and say YES! to finding the real you and allowing her to shine bright. Giving yourself permission does not need to be any harder than saying YES!, I give myself permission. That's it. The stories, the emotions, there may be some work to do to clean them up, but the act of giving yourself permission is a simple act.

Now if you need to, and many women do find this helpful, write yourself a permission slip. I know it may sound a little cliché, but trust me, it works. Write yourself a note of permission that you will allow yourself to say YES! to you.

Say YES! to being whoever it is you discover you want to be, because after all, that is your inherent right. Say YES! to wanting whatever it is you discover you want, simply because you want it and whether or not you choose to even go after it, by the way. Just allowing yourself to want what you want, irrespective of whether you actually want to make that happen.

And to say YES! to this process, everything else aside, the judgment, the criticism, the shoulds, the stories, the ifs, the buts. Put it all aside for now and just give yourself permission to explore this process. To make finding you in the maze of life matter.

Okay, so let's move on. How can you even begin to look for the real you in this maze of life?

Let me say firstly, there is no wrong or right way to go about this, and there is no cookie cutter one way to do so either. But I want to offer you some tips that I found helpful in the past, and I know have been very helpful for a lot of other women as well.

So here's tip number one.

I talked earlier about losing ourselves in the noise and chaos of life, which often shows up as our days blurring together in this overwhelming schedule of busyness, leaving no time for you. Now, busyness is very often a guise for not wanting to say YES! to you and make you matter, but that is a topic for a whole other episode.

My tip for you is this, start this process by quietening the noise and the chaos. Create some space in your day for white space, as I like to call it. Time where you don't need to think about anything or anyone, including you by the way. And I know this sounds a little counterintuitive when we are talking about finding you but go with me here. White space allows you to dampen all of the noise and chaos that comes from both outside of you and within, so that eventually you'll be able to hear yourself, see yourself and find yourself in your life.

So, set some time aside just starting with five to ten minutes to sit quietly and not force yourself to think about anything or anyone, but rather try to think about nothing at first. Use this space to clear your mind of the noise and chaos. To not have to be anyone for anyone or be anywhere. Use this space to take a breath, to pause, to reset and refresh your mind. It's like a quick reboot of your computer.

Now some women find listening to a meditation very helpful if their mind is particularly active. And meditation is a great way to get in touch with your inner self again over time. Some women find focusing on breathing exercises is very helpful. Whatever works for you. But I recommend setting time aside daily for this white space and do this until it becomes a natural part of your day.

Once you know how to quieten the noise and the chaos, then you are ready to take this work to the next level.

By the way, I have multiple white space time blocks on my calendar, something I thought in my own state of busyness some years ago would be an impossible task. Again, you get to decide to do this. To make it a priority, or not. It's completely up to you. But finding yourself is going to require spending time with yourself and quiet time with yourself to be able to tap into your innermost self and deepest desires.

Which is my second tip. Setting time aside for self-reflection. For journaling your thoughts, feelings and dreams, and asking yourself questions.

Questions like, what are my passions? What are the things that light me up within and stir happiness and fulfillment deep within my soul? What makes me feel truly alive? If I could do anything, knowing I couldn't fail, what is it I would want to do? What do I feel I must do before I leave this earth? What kind of woman do I want to be? What's important to me? What are the things I value? If I could create an everyday perfect day, what would that look like? And so on.

If you've never journaled before, you may find this difficult at first, but I encourage you to persevere. Again, just start small with a few minutes, and when that becomes a habit, dig a little deeper.

You could start by simply jotting down the small things you notice in your life. It could be things you do enjoy in your day, the people who do make a meaningful difference in your life, an environment that makes you feel warm and fuzzy emotions, positive emotions like peace, joy, happiness, expansiveness, light, and so on. It could be things that energize you, or it could be the things that you notice drain you.

This is all good information to know, because as I always say, you cannot change what you do not know exists. So every piece of information you gather about yourself and your life, what floats your boat and what doesn't, this is all extremely good information to know and to work with moving forward.

And when you are comfortable writing in your journal every day, no matter what it is you write, because let's just leave the pressures, remember that noise and chaos, aside so this process of finding you can unfold at its own pace unique to you.

There is no race here. There's no exact route that you must take. I bring you back to saying YES! to the process and allowing this all to happen for you in its own way. I promise if you commit to the process, the you that you seek will eventually be revealed.

Now once you have a journal happening, start to increase your time a little and add in those deeper questions about you and your life.

Journaling for me is a great way of simply living in the question without necessarily needing the answers or having to jump right in and commit to them. It's a way of exploring, reflecting, sitting with things to see what feels good, what feels true to you. And the thing about journaling is that it allows you to take all of your thoughts and feelings out of your head and dump them all onto paper. And that in itself is a fantastic way to create white space in your mind.

Now living in the question is actually my third tip for you.

When it comes to finding the real you after maybe having been lost for some time, you are not going to suddenly and magically get all the answers right away. There is going to be some trial and error, some trying things on to see how they fit, maybe making some adjustments, maybe throwing the ideas out altogether. This is very much what living in the question is all about. It's about recognizing your wants, needs and desires and trying them on for size.

What this means is that you also let go of needing everything to work out perfectly. You must let go of your preconceived ideas around trying things. Like I said, not everything you try on for size is going to be a good bit, and that is perfectly okay. Learn to accept that living in the question is about exploring the possibilities and finding answers. If the answer is no, this is not for you, great. If the answer is YES!, great. Every piece of information you gather is going to help you move forward in this process.

One thing that is common for many women going through this process is not wanting to make a mistake. Wanting to discover what it is they want, set a goal, and know that it is absolutely a goal that will light them up. And when it comes to opening the door on all of the possibilities for yourself again, there are likely going to be many things you'll want to do. So how do you know which one you should do, right? What if you choose the wrong one to focus on? YES!, what if? That's a great question to ask yourself.

What if you find out it's not the goal for you, it's not what you want? What if you do? What if you fail? But what if it's the greatest thing you ever do? This is living in the question, accepting there is no perfect choice. Accepting that you don't know what you don't know. Accepting all of the possible what ifs and trying it all on for size anyway.

I know for me, when I started this work again, I had narrowed down my very long list of dreams to the top three dreams. The first was creating a business that lit me up from the depths of my soul. I had no idea at the time what that was going to be, but I wanted the thing I do every day to have a meaningful impact on me and my world. The second dream was to move to Europe, and the third was to buy a yacht, learn to sail, and sail around the Mediterranean with my husband, spending lots of time in lots of places.

They were three fairly ambitious goals, at least for me, and ordinarily I would recommend choosing just one big goal at a time, which is what I did. And I chose to create a business that lit me up. And this is where I say allow things to unfold for you as they do. Life is what happens while you're planning life, right?

So you can follow the plan. You can go after the one big goal, fine. But what happened for me was that there were all these things happening in my life. My world was literally rearranging itself to take note of all these things I wanted, and the life experience I started allowing myself to believe was possible for me. And the opportunity for moving country suddenly presented itself, which meant the opportunity for buying a yacht and sailing around the Mediterranean also presented itself.

And instead of sticking to my guns and saying, well no, the focus is on goal number one only, and instead of buying into the story that I can't do it all, I decided to live in the question of all these things being a possibility at the same time. Now the fact that you are listening into this podcast is testament to me creating a business that truly makes me feel so alive and fulfilled. And if you've been listening in for a while or you know my story, you will also know that I moved to Europe where we have indeed been searching for our yacht.

So live in the question, release the pressure of needing to know or needing to get it right. Remember we are letting go of shoulds here, there are no rules. Allow the real you and the life she lives to slowly come into focus and importantly to evolve.

Expect too, that as you open the door and explore the possibilities, that you will have a lot of stories come to the surface. A lot of beliefs about yourself, and who you should be and the life you should live to come to the surface. And with that, a lot of emotions. Maybe like guilt, doubt, anxiety, nervousness, fear.

But the good news is, if you are indeed journaling regularly and you have that daily time set aside to have white space and reflect, to live in the question of you, you are well set up to rewrite your stories and those beliefs around your shoulds, for example, and clean up your emotions in the process.

And this is my fourth and final tip today.

As you seek to rediscover the real you and what it is you want, you will open the lid on some limiting stories and some negative emotions. I want you to accept and expect that this will happen because I promise you it will. Whenever you try to step outside the boundaries of what you know, of how you are used to existing, your brain is going to sense danger and trigger all kinds of stories to try and get you to step back in between the lines.

But if you truly want to be the star of your own show where the real you matters, your unique wants, needs, and desires matter, and your every day feels like it matters, you are going to need to step outside the lines into the unknown and feel the discomfort that comes with that, knowing that you can decide.

Remember you have that power and capability. You can decide to rewrite the stories you are telling yourself that don't support you moving forward to stories that do. You get to decide what you make everything mean and how you feel in every moment. You get to decide if you will continue to buy into your stories of should or create stories of could.

So how exactly do you rewrite your stories and clean up your emotions? Well again, since you are by now well versed in setting time aside to be with you, to journal, to self-reflect and live in the question, you are set up perfectly to deal with your stories and emotions.

Whenever you are feeling any strong negative emotions like anxiety or fear, for instance, take some white space. Pick up your journal to reflect and live in the question. I wonder what this emotion is telling me. Sit with your emotion and ask yourself, what story is playing inside my head right now? What story am I telling myself that is causing me to feel this way?

Then ask yourself, is this story serving you and is it really true? Is it the only truth available to you? Think about another possible story you could tell yourself instead, one that would help you feel more positive emotions. Then write down your new story in your journal and go about making that the story that runs on repeat inside your head.

Now, one of the tools I recommend to clean up your stories and emotions is my Self-Creation Shift process. It follows that very quick outline I just gave you in a nutshell, but it is a more step-by-step process. If you have already grabbed a copy of that, this is a great time to use it.

If you haven't, you can download a copy by taking my free YES! Block assessment over on my website. This is a free assessment designed to help you discover what's really stopping you from saying YES! to you and your dreams. Knowledge is power. So, I highly recommend taking the quiz if you haven't already taken it and I'll send you a copy of my Self-Creation Shift process. You'll find that link in the show notes.

The key thing I want you to remember in all of this is that you get to decide. You get to decide all of this. Don't give away your power to intentionally create a life you love by buying into the story that you have no choice or that you can't decide. There are some things we cannot control, it's true. But the things we've been talking about here today, you can control.

You get to decide that it's time for you to matter and be the star of your own show. You get to decide that what you want matters. You get to decide to challenge your norms, to stop living according to your shoulds, and decide for yourself the kind of life you want to live. You get to decide to give yourself permission for all of that, and that you are worthy and deserving of taking the time to do this work to find the real you in the maze of your life.

Before I close this episode out, I want to extend an invitation to you to join me in Week of YES!, which is my five part self-reflection course designed to help you give yourself permission, to see the possibilities, rediscover your passions and purpose, and create a personal playbook that you can use to help you stay on track to creating a life you'll love waking up to every single day.

Week of YES! used to be delivered over five days, hence the name Week of YES!, but it is now available in my course portal for you to be able to work through over the course of a week, a weekend, or at whatever pace is perfect for you. I have had almost 600 women go through the Week of YES!, and overwhelmingly, the feedback is that Week of YES! is the ultimate kickstart for saying YES! to you and saying YES! to a life you love.

You can find the link to Week of YES! in the show notes as well and I have a special deal right now for brand new members of Week of YES!. You can join me and kickstart this next chapter of you for just $97. That's a saving of almost 50%, my friend, but it is a limited time offer. So if you are ready to find you in the maze of life, and you'd like to really kickstart that process, check the show notes for a link to Week of YES! and I look forward to seeing you on the inside.

So, that's a wrap for today. Thanks so much for joining me and next week's episode will hit the airwaves on Wednesday morning just as I am hitting the ground in Istanbul for my summer vacay and cruise through Turkey and the Greek Islands. A vacation that is only possible because I became a woman who says YES!.

I am very excited to explore this part of the world and I can't wait for you to listen to the conversation I have planned next week. So stay tuned for that and I hope to see you around somewhere inside The Self-Creation School community sometime soon.

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.