Expectations vs Authenticity

Welcome to This Daring Adventure podcast, where we work on bridging the gap between where we are and where we want to be in order to live a bigger and bolder life. In this podcast, we will provide inspiration, tips, and skills you need to make your life the adventure you want it to be. Here's your host, mindset mentor and life coach, Trista Guertin.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to episode 52 of This Daring Adventure. Thank you for joining me today. I wanted to talk a little bit about how we can overcome societal pressure as women, and why this is important for our emotional management and emotional well being. And ultimately, for creating the lives that we want. We want to get unstuck. If we want to create a bigger, bolder life, then looking at how some of the socialization starts when we are younger and how it carries on throughout our lives. it also has an impact on us in the way we go after what we want and what we think is ultimately possible for ourselves for the purpose of this podcast I want to look at this specifically in Terms of how it affects what we think is possible for our lives. And we know that women continue to face a number of societal expectations and pressures. And these expectations clearly dictate how we should look, how we should behave, and ultimately, what goals we should aspire to. And we land up spending more time thinking about the size of our thighs, the color of our hair, and what we're wearing compared to what we think might actually be possible for our lives, what our own capacity may be to create and to achieve and how to learn. To manage our minds and to manage our emotions. These are things we're not taught. Instead, we're bombarded with messaging about how we should look and how we should live our lives. We're not talking about how much money we could be making or, what it is that we truly want. And if we do have those conversations, then they can be very limited. We tend to look at what we want in terms of a very, very select number or range of options, and one of the ways we can look at this is like a box of crayons when we were in school, especially talking about 40 years ago, we just had these small little packages of crayons that had seven or eight colors in them. And those are typically What we tend to think of if you are asked your favorite color, you're probably going to pick red, blue, pink, green, yellow. But in actual fact, there are millions of colors and millions of options. And if you go to Walmart now, you'll go and you'll find these massive boxes of crayons. And that is exactly how it is for our lives. That we tend to think of the options in terms of lawyer, teacher, doctor, nurse. But in actual fact, there are hundreds and thousands and millions of options of what we can do with our lives, how we can live our lives. And we don't really consider that. We're not really raised that way to have those discussions. What do you want to really be in your life? What, and how to think about it like that, how do you even start imagining what might be possible? And how much money do you want to make? You never had that conversation. Nobody ever asked me how much money I wanted to make until my coach started asking when we started to have those conversations, like, how much money do you really want? And it was interesting because I had a discussion with a client the other day and we were talking about money and I said, how much money do you want to make? She's I think I need this much, to cover my expenses for the month. And I'm like, Okay. And, but what do you really want? why are we just looking at covering our expenses and what would really change your life? What would really give you options? What would really excite you? We don't have those conversations. And so I want to try and open ourselves up to having some of these. So then we're not looking at these options, we're not exploring them, we're stuck in a pattern of not questioning these things and we don't know that we're limiting ourselves and we don't use our imagination. We don't clarify what we want and we definitely don't know how to get there. We're not taught how to manage our minds and manage our emotions in order to achieve those things. then at the same time, we hold on to our limiting beliefs, the same ones that we've held on to since childhood and adolescence and throughout all our years, as well as the same habits that keep us in the same loop, the same thinking of creating the same thing every single day. We rely on what we've done in the past or what those around us have done in the past instead of imagining what may be possible for our future. So then how can we overcome some of this societal expectations and pressures? I think the first step is to understand the stereotypes, understand that we have been raised with certain messaging from our media, from our institutions, from our families, that we are expected to be nurturing. We are expected to put others first. We are expected to hold the family together, to solve their problems, to make sure everybody's okay, and make sure that everybody's happy. And we are also raised to go into certain professions. And then there are also cultural pressures, which can often dictate our roles in society, which can be limiting. And this might mean, again, you're the primary caregiver, you're pursuing feminine professions, and conforming to beauty standards. Just having that awareness about how that may be shaping our lives and these are all messaging that we picked up as children and in as adolescents. And at that point, our brain is still forming. It is still trying to make sense of the world. It has limited understanding and capacity to be rational and to analyze. And we pick up these things, and we have certain opinions and certain understandings of them, that we carry with us throughout our lives without taking the time to examine what they may be and how they are impacting us. And more importantly, whether we want to keep them or not, because they will have an impact on how we live our lives today, but we may not be aware of them, and we may not want to keep them. It's also important to look at the media's role in shaping our perception of success and the media will play a significant role in perpetuating certain standards and ideals of success for women. This can include beauty standards portrayed in magazines to the portrayal of successful women in films. The media often presents a very narrow view of what it means to be a successful woman. If you look at advertising Certainly, the visuals of models and movie stars, we are bombarded with these. Adverts that promote a certain look or certain lifestyle as the pinnacle of success, and they can continually and subtly reinforce the idea that our worth is somehow tied to our appearance, that our worth is somehow tied to our appearance, or material achievements. And, of course, there's a lack of diversity. Seeing only certain types of race, body type, age can further skew our perceptions. Somehow we think that once we reach the age of 40, somehow we're not as valued and we're not as worthwhile as when we were younger. We're not as... Young looking as we once were. We have grayer hair. We have maybe put on more weight, whatever it is, but we don't see ourselves represented in the media and Therefore, it limits our aspirations, and this goes as well for younger girls. If they're not seeing themselves represented, it will also limit their aspirations. So what are some of the strategies for building resilience against these pressures? One of the best ways is to build self awareness. And having that time to reflect can help us to recognize when we are acting based on social societal expectations, rather than our own desires and journaling is always a great way to. Put down what you're thinking what you're feeling and reflecting on whether you are doing something or wanting something because you think you should because you think that this is the way it's supposed to be or is it truly something that you want and truly something that you imagine is going to help you to grow and help you evolve and help you to go to the next level. Educating ourselves, empowering ourselves, learning, gaining knowledge and tools to understand and challenge societal norms can be really important. When we are informed, then we can make better decisions that are more in line with our personal values and desires. So understanding the impact that the media and culture and institutions and family have had on our lives, and Challenging those if you can surround yourself with positive influences, this can have a huge impact by having a strong support system. It can be invaluable. Spending time with positive like minded individuals can really help you to reinforce a personal sense of worth and counter some of those societal pressures that we are picking up on a day to day basis. I think it also helps to really limit our exposure and challenge media narratives, somehow reducing that exposure to media sources, which promote an unhealthy or unrealistic standards. I am no longer buying those beauty magazines that I grew up on as a teenager and well into my twenties and thirties. I limit my time on social media. I limit my time, especially on Instagram and Facebook. And when I do, I think it's important to analyze the messages that are being presented and question whether they are true for me, if they are valuable for me, if they are something that I really want to incorporate and Of course, seeking mentors, having role models, looking for women who have defied societal expectations and paved their own path can be incredibly inspiring. And there are a lot of women out there who have done this. They serve as tangible proof that it's possible to break the mold. It is possible to live a life outside of what we think is the norm and what we think is expected. It's also important, though, to learn and explore how this might be possible for yourself, because oftentimes we see these women in the media, and we think they are unicorns, and we think that they have something that we don't and that they have figured something out that we haven't, and that's not true. It's genuinely not true. If someone else can do it, then it is possible for you too. And if there is something that you truly want for yourself, then it is possible. But it does take the tools and the skills and the support in order to learn how to manage your mind and your emotions to and to learn how to go after your goals and really, truly create those results for yourself and it's work and it takes effort and it takes patience and it will take time, but I truly believe that challenging some of these societal expectations that we've been raised with and that we are constantly exposed to is a part of our overall emotional management in our emotional well being. And if you are feeling stuck, it's probably because you are banging up against your limiting beliefs and your old habits and Your current thinking, which is the same day after day, and as I mentioned, reflects what you think is possible for yourself based on your past, and what has been possible for those in your immediate circle. And so it doesn't matter what area of your life we're talking about, it will all be the same. You will be running up into that same thinking and those same limiting beliefs and those same habits. And if you are not taught how to manage your mind and manage your emotions, then you stay stuck. You stay in the same patterns that you always have. And emotional management means you are deciding on purpose how you want to feel, and then you live your life in feeling it on purpose, and you switch from being reactive to a non reactive mode, and you're responding on purpose and consciously, and you are not then doing something or living a life that you don't feel like doing, and Therefore, when you know how to manage your thinking in order to create your emotions, allow your emotions and then change them, you will be able to direct your actions in order to create the results that you want. And understanding, throughout our lives, we will experience the full range of emotions and this is what it means to be human. We will experience all of the emotions and it doesn't mean that anything has gone wrong. And it doesn't mean that we should try and avoid certain emotions. That's not what I'm talking about here. But we also have the ability to create our emotions, and when we are able to create our emotions, we are able to therefore take the action that we want in order to create the results that we want for our lives. Everything you do, everything you want is because of how you think you will feel when you have done it, or when you have received it, and in order to take that action in order to move yourself forward, you need to be feeling a feeling that will drive you towards that action to take that action. We do this by managing our minds by thinking the thoughts we need to think in order to generate that feeling. Which will drive our actions and then create our results. If we are stuck in the same thought patterns, with the same limiting beliefs, looking just at what we've done in the past or what those in our immediate circle have done before, and if we have been socialized to think that what is possible for ourselves and for our lives depends on What has been defined by others, whether it's culture, media, family, other institutions, then we remain stuck. We are only living within the confines of what others have told us is possible for ourselves. But in actual fact, we are capable of so much more. The possibilities are endless, but it's up to us. To decide what it is we want. We have to imagine what might be possible. We have to decide what that next level looks like for ourselves. We have to let go of what others may be expecting of ourselves. We have to let go of what we may be expecting for ourselves as well. That is tied to how we grew up and how we've been socialized and let all of that go and start imagining on a much bigger scale. And the key to this will be managing our thoughts, managing our emotions, in order to drive those actions to create those results that we want. And once you learn how to use these tools, and build these skills, then this is where the shift starts to take place. This is how you start to move yourself forward. This is when everything starts to change for you. If you are continually thinking the same thoughts every single day, you will just continue to have the same results. So getting support, getting help, learning these skills, learning these tools are key. And this is where coaching comes in. This is where we start to work together to understand what are your limiting beliefs? What are the habits? What are the expectations that you have taken on and what changes do you want to make? What might be possible for yourself? What might be possible for yourself? What might be possible for your life? Explore that. Decide what it is. And then start to move yourself forward. Step by step, bit by bit again. It takes work. It takes effort. But when you have the right support, when you have a coach there by your side asking you The right questions showing you your mind helping you to overcome and solve the problems and obstacles that you face along the way you start making progress and you do this in one area of your life and then it moves to another area of your life and another area of your life and you set one goal and you achieve that and then you set another goal and you achieve that and along the way you become the person that you've always wanted to become or the person that you didn't even imagine that you could become. It's an exciting process. There's nothing else like it. This is what turns everything upside down. This is where it all starts to change. This is where the transformation starts. So I invite you to get on my calendar. The link will be in the show notes. Schedule your private one hour coaching session with me and let's talk. You can bring any issue you wish. Let's talk about what's holding you back and how you're playing small. Let's talk about what it is you might want to create for yourself and your life. I have a three month coaching program. It is the starting point for you to learn these tools and skills and to start making that shift for yourself in order to get unstuck, to move yourself forward and to reach that next level. It's a journey that is incredible and it's completely worthwhile and changes. And it's exciting and it's fun. I truly hope you'll consider getting on my calendar. it's a great opportunity to try coaching for yourself and get some help on whatever issue it is that you're facing. If you have a moment to rate, review, share, and subscribe this podcast, I would truly appreciate it. Every review, every share helps to get the podcast out in front of more people and helps more women along the way. I will talk to you next week. Thanks everybody. Bye bye.

Thank you for listening to This Daring Adventure podcast with your host Trista Guertin. We hope you enjoyed the tips and conversations on how to get excited about life again. As always, you can head to tristaguertin.com for additional resources and to book a one on one coaching session. You can also follow Trista on Instagram at tristavguertin. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review us on Apple podcasts. Thanks again for tuning in and we'll see you next time.