Hi everyone and welcome back to another podcast episode. My name is Alicia Gogan, the host of the Glow Up Secrets podcast, where I help you expand your mind and become more self-aware so that you can glow up into the best version of yourself. Okay, today we have a really important episode.
I'm really excited for it because this has been my life for many years, hitting rock bottom. Unfortunately, I have gone through many times in my life where I have hit rock bottom and I've had to get myself out. And what has gotten me out were a lot of different mindset shifts and things that I have learned that I want to bring to you guys. So this episode is going to be for those who feel like they're either at rock bottom or they feel stuck. You feel annoyed by life.
You feel like nothing is working. You feel really hopeless. You feel lost.
You just want to not be in the life that you are currently in. And I want to just say, I feel you. I have been there and... you can get out of these places.
But the way you're going to get out of these places is through a few mindset shifts or a lot of different mindset shifts. And of course, different habits and actions that you're going to need to take. And my hope for you guys is some of the things that I have learned on my journey can be applied to your life. So I want to give you a quick little backstory, a very summed up version of some of my rock bottoms and where I'm at right now.
And then we're going to get into the mindset shifts that I had to make. in my life in order to get myself out of the things that I was living in. There might be things that you do not resonate with. There probably will be things that will hit home for you. And I think if anything that I say hits home for you, take that and run with it and go deeper in that and take that mindset on and allow it to guide you in a way that will hopefully get you out of the things that you have been going through in your life.
So I came from a small town, lower class living, didn't have a lot of money. I I had a father who was emotionally distant. He was really, really strict.
He was really, really hard on me. I really felt afraid of him in many aspects of my life, which created a lot of childhood trauma. It created a disorganized attachment style.
Actually, I've had tendencies of being anxious and also avoidant and you add those two and they become your disorganized attachment. Now, when you don't have the best relationship, with a parent or both parents or family life, it really affects you as a person. Your closest relationships really shape you and shape the way you look at the world and yourself and the way you show up in relationships and everything is relational and what you believe is possible for yourself and your confidence and the way you go to school and the way you just believe in yourself.
So I came from that kind of dynamic at home. I wasn't confident with myself. I was a very shy child in school. My mother did the best that she could with what she had.
She was very unconditionally loving actually throughout my life, but I had such polar opposite parents that it was very confusing for me in a lot of aspects of my life. As I grew up, my dad passed away right before I turned 16, and that's when my mother actually fell to her own addictions and was really struggling through those times. So not only did I lose my father, which I had this weird relationship with to begin with, and...
There was still so many underlying traumatic things that I had to work through that I had not even healed from because I didn't really even understand, you know, childhood trauma and healing and all that kind of stuff. I then had to deal and grieve the loss, even though my mother was alive and she still is, thank God, she's actually doing so much better in her life. But throughout that time, she was really struggling. So I had to navigate life at the age of 16, losing that parent.
And needing somebody to rely on and needing a lot of people to rely on. And no one was really there for me to rely on. And of course, like losing that mother-daughter relationship, the way that I thought that maybe we would have obviously created a lot of underlying issues and trauma and things that I also had to heal from. So in my teenage years into my twenties, I had a really tough time in life.
Financially, I was stressed. I had all these unresolved emotions and feelings and trauma that were coming out. And- the way that I showed up in my life. My confidence was really low. I was dating the wrong people.
I didn't have boundaries. There was so much turmoil. And of course, in the midst of financially being stressed, trying to figure out my life as a teen slash into my early twenties, not loving myself, stressed about my mother, worried about my mother, worried about the relationship that we were having, everything, I started having chronic illness.
Now I've had a few things in my life. Right as I got out of high school, I had a hyperactive thyroid and then I got onto medication and then it kind of like balanced out, thank God, because, you know, thyroid issues are very hard. So I've dealt with that before, which is an autoimmune disease. It is a part of chronic illness. And I'm so not surprised that I had that at a younger age.
I've always had digestion issues when I was younger, even growing up. And then I ended up getting. diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, which is so incredibly tied to your stress levels and your mental health. And I was living in such a toxic environment.
I've said this a few times. I was living in a trap house essentially. And it sounds like pretty like wild.
And some of the things when I say, I just feel like, I don't know, it sounds so like passive when I'm saying them. It's so behind me now, but I was living in a home where there was addicts, there was drug dealers, and I was trying to create a safe space in my own place and live life and go to school and deal with all of the chaos of my life. And that's when I also got diagnosed with colitis.
So it's no wonder that I had health issues and I was constantly stressed and I had an eating disorder at that point too. Like there was just a lot of things, okay? So I was going through so much hard real life things.
And this went on for many years. This went on for my early 20s. I am 28, almost 29 in November.
And so that was the first, basically half of my 20s. And I got myself out of all of these things, okay? And I'm not even saying that my life is perfect and that I've made it and that there's no healing to be needed or there's no more success to be hit or there's no things to be done in my life. Absolutely not.
Or repair that needs to be done with... relationships in my life? No, but I am in such a different spot.
I am living the life that I always dreamed of when I was going through these hard times. When I was going through these hard times, I was always thinking about the life that I had now. I didn't even know if I was ever going to get it truthfully. I didn't ever know if I was going to stop being obsessed with food and binge eating and bringing food up and constantly being controlled by food and hating myself. I didn't...
ever think that I was going to be able to get healthy relationships, whether that was friendships or romantic. I never thought that I'd be able to get out of this rat race of like this financial stress. I never even knew if I was ever going to have a good relationship with my mom or just be at a fight or flight or if my colitis was ever going to stop flaring up.
There were so many things that I just didn't know, but of course I was able to get. And so as you can tell, I had a lot of rock bottoms which means I learned a lot of things and I had to readjust and had to readjust again and I had to adjust and I had to up level and I had to learn things and I had to go through cycles and I talk a lot about my story in my book The Ultimate Glow Up Guide so I would highly suggest if you really are interested in my story and some of the things that really allowed me to get out of these places I would suggest getting my book it'll be linked down below you can get your bookstores you can get it on Amazon everything like that. But around 24, 25 is when I had probably my last really big breaking point. I had nerve pain in my hands for about two years.
I didn't even know what it was. They thought it was carpal tunnel. I did all of the tests under the sun.
I did every single procedure you possibly could do to try and fix it. I was almost going to have hand surgery because I thought it was carpal tunnel, but it wasn't. Thank God I didn't get that done.
Anyways, to sum everything up, and I talk about it again in my book, is my body was in fight or flight. I was highly stressed. I was living on trauma and I really had to do a lot of deep healing. And that hand pain actually led me to learning about the mind-body connection and understanding that, whoa, I'm carrying all these deep emotions and these feelings and I need to release them and I need to heal from them and I need to slow down. And I really need to like look at what's happening in my life right now.
And I really need to adjust some of these things. And that is the first thing, if you are in rock. bottom right now that I just want you to come to.
Okay. There's actually two things. And then we're going to get into these like kind of like tough love mindset shifts that I've had to pick up over my life that I think will really help you. But the first thing I want you to really do, if you are feeling like you are rock bottom, you're confused, you don't know, you're stressed, you're whatever.
I want you to allow yourself to be okay with this breaking point right now. And I know it's so hard to even think about accepting the fact that you are. where you're at right now, whether it was your fault, whether it was not your fault, whether you're in pain, whether you're just tired of it.
It's not an easy thing to accept. Of course it's not. It's uncomfortable.
It's uncomfortable to be like, this is where my life is at. It's uncomfortable to be like, I have chronic pain right now and I do not want to be in it. And why would I ever want to accept this?
Because this is hurting. I'm in pain. But the biggest lesson that I learned in one of my last hardest rock bottoms and I talk about it so much in my book is this emotional release of yeah wow this is how my life is right now or I am angry about this this is not fair this is uncomfortable it is not fair it is not right I hate this x y and z but it's this true emotional release and the reason why I'm saying that is because when I look back at all the times that I was really struggling in my life I just wanted to get out which obviously that's what you're doing, even when you're watching this episode. But when you are in tough times, you just want to get to the next thing. You want to learn the next thing to get yourself out.
But... In doing that, sometimes you're creating more stress and resistance on what is. And the reason why it's important to look at what is and see your life for what it is, is for one, to release the emotions that are pent up within your body, which are causing a lot of health issues sometimes, or a lot of stress that's not needed. But also for you to see your life clearly, for you to really see what is it going to take for me to get out of this situation? What is working?
What is not working? But sometimes we're not able to see that when we are constantly just going and going and going and we're not taking a second. We're not taking a second because it's uncomfortable. It's really uncomfortable for you to acknowledge the fact that you are not where you want to be right now or that you've gotten yourself into a mess or to have to deal with the fact that I don't have my mom the way that I thought that I was going to have my mom at this age. Or, holy shit, I have a lot of childhood trauma that I am acting out of right now.
And wow, does that hurt. But I think that is the... Most important thing when it comes to starting a healing journey and actually getting yourself out of rock bottom is to just accept everything for what it is and I'm going to link down below a guided meditation of acceptance and I want you to potentially try out that meditation if you're struggling with this idea of Accepting things whether it's chronic pain whether it's loss whether it's financial stress but I promise you that is The biggest thing that really changed the game for me is accepting and being okay with, yeah, life is kind of a mess right now. Because again, not only does it release you from this insane amount of stress that you're under emotionally and physically, but it actually allows you a lot more space and clarity for you to think the way you need to think and do the things you need to do to get yourself out of this situation. Now, when I hit rock bottom, And I did this acceptance, this emotional release.
Again, it's all in my book, okay? When I did all of that, I started to have a lot more clarity. And I want to read this quote from Confucius. This was, I believe, like an old-time philosopher or something of the sort.
And the quote goes, Every man has two lives, and the second one starts when he realizes he just has one. And I want you to really take this in. You have one life.
So if you are in rock bottom right now, not only is it going to be up to you to figure out a way to get out, which you are doing already, which is amazing and I love that for you, but I want you to really be serious about your life. Stop playing with life. Stop playing with your potential. Stop playing with life as if you have two lives.
And when you stop playing with life, you start to get serious with life and you start to think about How do I want the rest of my life to go? So no matter where you're at, whether you are in your 20s, your 30s, 40s, 50s, whatever, younger, older, doesn't matter. And it also doesn't matter if you are still in pain or if you're still financially struggling or if your life is still a mess.
I want you to think about your second life, which is really your first life. How do you want to spend your rest of the time that you are here on this earth doing? How do you want to spend it? And I need you to get clear on that. I need you to have a vision, a focus, because one thing that I will say that always kept me going through the hardest times of my life is to have a vision, is to understand that there is a life outside of this stuckness, this rock bottom.
And I am going to hold that vision so hard until I get that. And this is the type of mindset that I had when I had my hand pain. I was like, I don't know what the answer is going to be. I don't know how I'm going to get out of this campaign. I don't know when this is going to happen.
All I know is I have one life and I am going to focus on a vision and a plan for my future. And I am not going to take my eyes off of this until it becomes my reality. And that is how you have to look at your life.
You have to be so damn serious with your life. And I will tell you this. I have been around a lot of people who have hit rock bottom.
I have a lot of people in my current life that are still in rock bottom. And the overarching theme that I see, and there's no judgment because everyone is on their own journey and they're going to hit this when they hit it, but the overarching theme that I see in some people is they're playing with life. They still do believe that they have that second life.
They do feel like they have a lot of time. And this is not to say you want to scare yourself into... changing, right?
Oh my gosh, I only have a few years to live or like I only have X amount of years. It's not about that, but it's to understand that you really only have one life and your life really starts when you realize you only have one and not two. So enough with playing with your life, get serious about your healing, get serious about your mindset and get serious about the things that we are going to talk about.
Okay. So let's get into, I don't even know what the list is. I think it's maybe like Eight, maybe? Eight things. I don't know.
We'll probably go on a little bit of a tangent. These are things that I live by. These are things that I had to get real on when it came to my journey of life, of getting through financial insecurity, healing myself, yada, yada, yada. Okay.
So these are also in no particular order. So just take them as you will. The first thing that I needed to do when I was in rock bottom was to exit the comparison trap. And I think that this goes hand in hand with the victim mentality, which I will talk about, but you really have to stop comparing your situation to others.
And it is really easy to do that when you are in rock bottom, because it seems like everyone's doing better than you, right? Everyone's healthier than you. Everyone has more money than you. Everyone's more successful. Everyone's more productive.
And although... You can use all of those things as inspiration and motivation, which I would suggest to go back to last week's episode because I talked about comparison. So please, I will have that link down below. But you really just have to exit this comparison because you're getting too caught up in everyone else's life when you should be caught up in your own life.
Accept your circumstance for what it is. Take responsibility over your life and understand that everyone else is on their own journey. Everyone else has their deck of cards. You have yours. Focus on that.
The next thing that was the biggest game changer of my life, and my friends will all say the same thing, they'll back me on this, is eliminating victim mentality. Now, the reason why, before I even talked about these things... I gave you the piece of accepting where you're at and doing the emotional release, right?
Allowing yourself to feel, allowing yourself to be mad at the world, allowing yourself to X, Y, and Z. That is so great because you never want to suppress emotions. You never want to suppress how you're feeling. You need to maybe reach out to people. You might need support.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. You guys know we're all about that. But at the end of the day, you're not going to change your life if you continue to complain about how everyone else.
And everything in the world is against you. The system is failing you. The system is rigged.
These people over here are making it challenging for you. My family is this. These people are that.
Listen, coming from somebody who had a lot of odds stacked up, baby, listen, I could go into detail and we're not going to go into detail. That shit was pretty stacked up, okay? Fairly high, which meant I had to be very mentally strong through some of these times in my life in order to get out.
Because if I was not, I would have been at rock bottom. I still would have been there. Okay.
And I've unfortunately grew up with a few people who they were children of people similar to the circumstances that I was in with my parents. And they unfortunately didn't make it, which is, it's really, really sad. And I'm also not saying that it's their fault. I'm not saying it's your fault. I'm not saying it's my fault.
It is not your fault. that you got handed this deck of cards. It is not. But unfortunately, or fortunately, in my personal opinion, because I'm an optimist, it's going to be up to you to change the way your life goes.
And I'm not saying that it's going to be an easy task. I'm not even saying that it's fair. It's not fair. But what's the alternative? And I want you to really think about this.
If you find that you are constantly complaining and blaming and whatever, how is that going to get you out of your circumstance? And there was a quote, I don't know who it's from, but I wrote it down and it says, it's easier to change yourself than it is to change the world. And I feel like a lot of people who are in the victim mentality, and by the way, I've been there, okay? So this is why I'm like, I'm talking about it because I've been that person. People who are in victim mentality, they tend to be having this mindset of trying to change the other person or trying to change the world.
Or if you just stop doing that, then I will be good. If this thing changed over here. then I would be happy.
If this job just paid me more or if these people just change the system, then I would be x y and z. Well you could do that and I'm not saying that sometimes you don't need to voice things but I want you to see how you are expending so much energy trying to change the world when what you really need to do first is to change yourself. Change the way you view the world. Change the way that you view your future.
Stop engaging with people places and things that are keeping you stuck. Have your boundaries, change your beliefs, heal your past traumas, do the things that you need to do. Take responsibility over your life before you demand somebody else to take responsibility over their life. And again, I'm talking from experience of people who should have taken responsibility over their life and they didn't and it affected me. But I have learned in my life that I deserve more than to waste my energy and my time trying to get somebody else to change.
I don't need that anymore. And the result of you eliminating this victim mentality is you go to the opposite side, which is a creator mentality. So no longer are you looking at all the negative, all the ways that things should be changed, all the ways that things aren't changed.
You start to see opportunity. You start to have a positive outlook and be like, oh, I can do these things. You stop expanding energy over shit that's not going to change.
You start. putting more time and effort into your actions and your habits. And when you start doing that, you get yourself out of these situations. And again, I talk about this in my book when it came to my hand pain. I didn't know how I was going to get out of hand pain, but what I learned from years of experience with this is I'm never going to get out of hand pain by crying about the fact that there's no answers.
I have to believe in something. I have to have faith that there's gonna be an answer some way, somehow. I'm never going to be able to even see and find an answer if all I'm looking for is the negative. If all I'm doing is talking down on the system or talking down on these people or being like, there's nothing out there, I can't do it, I'm being a pessimist, this, that, and the third.
That's not how I got out of pain. That's not how I healed myself. That's not how I made more money. That's not how I got what I wanted in my life.
It was not from this victim mentality. It was from a creator mentality. It was from, I can do this even if I don't know how.
I can do this. I have belief in myself. I can do this even if it takes X amount of time.
I am doing this. I have no other option. I would rather do this than to sit here and complain because it gets me nowhere.
Which leads me into the next thing, which is be willing to sacrifice things, which is, I feel like it's just... not a thing that anyone wants to hear. I feel like probably, I don't know, sometimes I just think about like the younger generation who are online or chronically online, who just like, don't feel like lifting a finger ever. And you know, I've been there. I've had times where I don't want to work or I don't want to do these things or I don't want to sacrifice my life or why should I, why should I?
It's not fair. It's just that again, ain't nobody saying that it's fair. But what I am saying is if you want to get to where you really want to be, which is freedom and money and happiness and health and all these things, these are some hard truths that you're going to need to understand and live by. And if you do that, you will get there quicker. So do you want to get there?
Yes or no. Okay. Because we can't go back in time and change the past.
And what I mean by sacrifice, I mean, be willing to work. And I mean, be okay with the fact that, yeah. Right now, your life is what it is right now. And there's going to be real things that you're going to need to work yourself out of doing. And I think that that's what keeps a lot of people stuck because they think about how much time or money or energy or this it's going to take to get yourself out, which you want to be careful with your limiting beliefs because you can change your life in a split second, way quicker than you think, way quicker than you think.
So just know that. But I'm going to bring it to like a little. example of my best friend and I, we have always been ones who have had to work and we've had, we haven't had similar upbringings, but she had to do the kind of the same thing that I did. Just take responsibility of your life. Nobody's coming to save you.
You got to make your money. You got to do the things that you need to do. You have to sacrifice your weekends. You have to sacrifice some time.
You have to work. You got to work, get your ass up and work sometimes. And ain't nobody really want to hear that.
And I didn't want to hear that either, but you know, that's just how it went. But for her and I, when we. became friends. We were servers and we were the top servers at this restaurant.
And we came in with a mindset, a mindset of, I am not a victim. I am a creator and I am going to work and I'm going to hustle. And I am okay with taking responsibility over my life. And I am okay with sacrificing some of my time right now for my future.
And that type of mindset and that type of work ethic resulted into us getting the shifts that we needed and we wanted and us making the most money out of everyone who worked. there, which allowed us to solve a lot of our money problems. I'm not really saying that my friend had like a money problem, really.
Um, she's always been like really good with her finances and stuff like that. But regardless, at the end of the day, when you're usually in rock bottom, there's a few things that will help me. Maybe obviously if you just are unhealthy and you just really want your health back again, this, that, but I think that most people's rock bottoms, there is like that piece of probably being like, you feel stuck financially. If you just had more money, like you probably, um, could be in a better spot.
Obviously you're going to have to do what you need to do. Sometimes I couldn't work because I had chronic health issues. So I understand that, but there's still so many things that you can do even on those particular times, but solving your money problems will solve a lot for you.
It won't solve everything, but it will definitely improve your quality of life. But The problem that I feel like a lot of people have is they're not willing to work. They're not willing to sacrifice their time. They are doing a lot of complaining, a lot of, oh, I don't want to do this or it's too hard or this, that. And I just personally like, no matter where you're at, you can be successful.
You could be working at McDonald's. You could be working at a restaurant. You could be even working in tech.
You could be working whatever freaking field it is. You can tell there are people who have different mindsets and who excel in their careers, no matter where they are at. based off of their mindset versus other people. And when you have a good mindset like that, when you are willing to sacrifice and work and be positive, you will get places.
You will get a lot further than where a lot of people will say you can't because you work a nine to five that doesn't make a lot of money or you make an hourly wage that is never gonna get you anywhere in your life. Partly that is true, which is why I wanna talk about working smart, not hard. But at the end of the day, be willing to work.
Put in the time and effort. I promise you. you will thank yourself. And I had to get real with myself, especially when I came out of college of being like, Alicia, you could have more work ethic.
You could bust your ass more. And I'm not saying like, obviously work until you're burnt out this, that, like, obviously we're not trying to be toxic, but at the end of the day, stop looking for the easiest way out. I promise you, you trying to find the easiest way out will end up keeping you further back in life. It is not to say that you can't build a life where you have freedom. I have freedom now.
and I'm still continuing to create more freedom for myself. But unfortunately, sometimes in your life, you're just gonna need to be willing to sacrifice things. Now, on the topic of sacrificing some of your time in order to get your financial situation sorted or your life sorted, because career and finances are a big part of your life and it will dictate for sure a lot of freedom, you're gonna have to learn how to work smart.
Because I will say this, hard work is not gonna make you a better person. is great and it will pay off, but it will only pay off so much. And the way that I am able to have the freedom that I have now is not simply just by busting my ass.
It was by busting my ass and capitalizing on my time. And so what do I mean by that? And honestly, I could have an entire episode of this, of like building your dream life while working nine to five.
I actually do have a YouTube video on my main channel that I did two years ago about that, but I can do an updated one. But I think a lot of this stuff will basically resonate and like... correlate with that video. But I had to understand that, yeah, my nine to five or even when I was serving, there's a cap and I'm going to need a certain amount of money in order to live the life that I want to live. How am I going to do that?
Well, I need to think about how to be really smart with my time and my energy throughout my career and my job. So not only is it, yes, making the right moves in your career when it comes to making as much money as you possibly can, which sometimes means obviously training your time for money until you no longer have to do that. Like that's just like it's a basic one on one thing when it comes to making money. It's like at some point you're going to have to trade your time for money until you get really, really good at making more money in less time.
So for me, this looked like, OK, making sure that I was working a lot. But also on my free time, whatever free time that I did have, I was building my skills. I was thinking about my future.
I was thinking about how do I educate myself to learn how to get out of this shit that I don't want to be in. Sorry guys, my camera died. So I'm going to try and pick back up where I was yapping from. But basically what I realized in my own life was I have a lot of time to capitalize on. in my free time.
So when I'm working a job that doesn't pay me enough, I am going to spend my time figuring out how I can make more money. Whether it's a new business or a new thing on the side or a second job or making more money this that or building skills that will lead me down the line to something that will be more lucrative. And that could be within a year, four, five, six, seven, ten years, doesn't matter, depends, right? For me, I realized I didn't want to be working at my nine to five and it also wasn't paying me enough. That wasn't a field that I no longer wanted to work in.
So I worked there and I was serving. And then I realized I was making more money an hour. serving and bartending than I was at this nine to five.
And because I didn't want to grow in this industry, I decided to leave that work as a server bartender full-time and make as much money as I possibly could, which was a lot. And partly it was because of my mindset and the energy that I came into work as, and how I was really positive and I was optimistic and I was making a lot of money. Even my friend, the same thing. We just had a vision and a goal and we're like, we're making money.
We're getting out of, well, for me, I was getting out of debt. I'm doing the things that I need to do. I'm going to stack my money.
I'm I'm going to X, Y, and Z. And when I would go home, I'd be working on what I wanted to do, which for me, it was my social media. I was on TikTok.
I was growing my YouTube, my podcast, whatever. And then I made obviously way more money online than I even did serving. And because that's something that I wanted to do anyways, I was like, okay, I'm going to work on this until I can leave my serving job, which I did.
And now I make way more money. And even now I am capitalizing on this time and I'm doing a lot of things on my downtime. time to help me in my future. I'm putting my money where it needs to go. I'm putting my time and my energy into learning new skills and new things about myself.
And I'll continue to do that as I continue to grow in my life. And that's just what you have to do, especially when you're younger, but even as you're older. And again, I just feel like I get, I get being tired.
I get it. And there's times where you just, you need to let yourself live, right? You need to not burn yourself out, but there are going to be sacrifices that you need to make and you might as well make them now versus later.
Later will be harder. The longer you wait, and it's not about, oh, well, if you're in your 40s or 50s or whatever and you're listening to this, like it's going to be harder for you then. But it's like wherever you're starting, just understand that it's better to start right now than it will be in the next 10 years, no matter what age you're at. So you might as well start now.
Now, one thing my friend and I were talking about actually today on the phone was how we used to habit stack a lot. So when we would drive to work, we'd be listening to podcasts that would educate us about something or that would help us in some sort of way. I know I used to always listen to a lot of mindset stuff and healing work and learning about the nervous system and mind-body connection, whatever I wanted to learn, right? Anything that I was interested in, you have online resources that are for free everywhere you look and go. There's really no excuse as to- why you wouldn't be able to build new skills and educate yourself the best way you can, at least starting out for free until you can, you know, save some money.
And then maybe you're going back to school or maybe you're, you're doing a course and you're investing in a course. When you're going to the gym, you're listening to podcasts, you're listening to things that will up-level you, that will keep you focused. When it comes to spending your money, you're spending your money wisely. You're making sure you have a budget for yourself.
You're making sure you're paying off your debts. You're making sure you have money to go towards savings or school versus, you know, Monday. day and things like always going out and partying and wasting your money and clothes and whatever, you know what I mean?
So just being really responsible and understanding that this is going to be something that you have to do until you no longer have to do it or it becomes less of a thing that you have to do. Because yes, I'm still responsible in my life. Yes, I still have to allocate my money to certain things. Yes, I have to do all of these things, but it's like way less and it's not as hard because I have created a life where it's easier to do these things. Now, another thing that is so imperative.
When you are in rock bottom is to consistently, and I mean daily, and I do this now daily, okay? And I am not in rock bottom. is to work on your beliefs and your mindset.
Because at the end of the day, your beliefs are dictating your reality. If you believe that things are possible for you, you will take the action to do those things. If you do not believe things are possible for you, you will not put yourself out there and you will not try and you will not do what you need to do. And a lot of us, especially when you do not come from money, from success, from health, from whatever, if you're in rock bottom as well and you've been in there for a while, you probably don't have the best beliefs. But in order to do that, order for you to get things that you want in your life you're gonna have to think differently so focusing on having a morning practice an evening practice however you want to do it there's so many ways in which you can work on your mindset for me I really utilized podcasts a lot especially when I was driving to work when I was driving home from work when I was going to work out even when I was sometimes I was like a banquet serving and I was like polishing cutlery and stuff or like fixing the tables and setting up the tables I would have a headphone in and I'd be listening to positive affirmations and you know just capitalizing on my time now another thing is to only look up to people that you actually want to be and ignore the rest.
And I think this is really important for the generation that we live in because social media is a thing. There are so many people doing a million things, right? So having a vision for yourself and figuring out what you want to do, which will always like change and evolve, which is, that's fine.
But having some sort of vision so you can kind of like stay focused, but Yeah. At the end of the day, when you are in rock bottom, you really want to be saturating your mind with people who are telling you that it's possible. You want to be looking up to people who are successful.
You want to be listening to people who just have really good beliefs and positive outlooks, even just in your friend groups, right? If there's people who are pessimistic, if there's people who are constantly talking down on people or being negative or whatever, cut them out. I'm telling you, you have to do that because these are the people, places, and things that will keep you stuck.
It will keep you stuck to continuously scroll on TikTok and listen to people spew out their limiting beliefs. It will keep you stuck to constantly be spending time around people who hate themselves, who hate the world, who are constantly complaining. And it's going to be up to you to continue to remove yourself from these people, places, and things.
Do you have to be perfect? Will there be people around you that are negative? Yes, you have to be resilient and you have to be like, I'm not going to take their beliefs on as mine.
But at the end of the day, your external environment really does impact what you believe is possible for yourself. It really is. And, you know, you can be really strong and have a belief system of thinking that everything is going to work out for you and this, that.
But if you put yourself in places where every other person other than you is thinking the opposite, it's going to be so hard. for you to actually believe it's possible. Even if you try your best, it's so easy to get influenced.
So you really have to protect yourself, protect your peace, protect your mind, especially on social media, but also offline. Now, another thing I was talking to my friend about was this concept of having one foot in gratitude and one foot in desire as you are on a journey of leveling up your life. And This quote was from Melanie Ann Layer, and it really just stuck with me because this is something that I learned really young was as you're in rock bottom and you have things in your life that you do not enjoy, there has to be a level of you accepting and being okay with this. And you also having a desire to want more for your life.
Because if... you don't have one foot in gratitude and acceptance and one foot in desire, you will either be engulfed and fall into your rock bottom and believe that this is all you can have if you don't have desire, if you don't have belief of something outside of what you currently have in your life. But on the flip side, if you are only focused on having things that you don't currently have right now, you will find yourself very unhappy and you will find yourself constantly focusing on all the shit that's not going right, which in turn keeps you stuck. It keeps you in the victim mentality.
It keeps you in the woe is me. It also, from a manifestation standpoint, in my opinion, and what I've seen in my life, you tend to just keep attracting the same thing because you're only focused on the lack. You're focused on all the things that are not going right in your life. And you're crying about how you don't have your desires yet. So it's good to have a vision, a desire for something bigger than yourself, bigger than what you have right now.
You want more. You want to be more healthy. You want to be more successful, more money, better friends. But if you want to get out of the situation that you're currently in, and if you want to feel like it's not this uphill battle, there needs to be some gratitude. There needs to be some understanding of, you know what?
This is my reality. I don't want to be working this nine to five right now, or I don't want to be serving and I don't want to be giving up my time. But you know what? At least I have a job.
At least I have this opportunity to continue to move forward in my life. At least I have my body or my health or I have some sort of something to be able to think clearly or to do more or to habit stack. In my hardest times, all I wanted was more financial security. I wanted my mom to show up differently. I wanted my health back.
But all I could do was focus on what I did have, which was sometimes only part of my health. sometimes only enough energy to get up and go for a walk versus go to my workouts the way I really wish that I could so that I could have a nicer body and I could be more successful and I can whatever. I had to be grateful for what I did have. I had to be grateful for the shitty master that I had that got me from point A to B so I can get to work and to work more hours and to get myself out of debt. I had to be okay with that instead of only focusing on how I wanted a new car or I wanted out of this job or I wanted to make more money or I wanted to be a YouTuber.
Yeah. I had to be grateful and happy that I even had the confidence with myself to start my YouTube channel or to start my podcast episode or the fact that I had a thousand subscribers and I didn't have a hundred thousand subscribers. I had to be grateful and I had to focus on the positive, not only so that I could get out of my situation, but also so that I can live in the present moment because I need you to understand this.
There is really no other destination other than death when it comes to growing and evolving. And I think that we... we forget this we're always on the pursuit of the next thing the next thing the next thing we're waiting for that destination we're waiting to hit that goal but understand that there's always going to be something that you want there's always going to be something that you want to work on there's always going to be problems that need to be fixed so try not to strip your beautiful life your dynamic and i know sometimes annoying ass life from what it could be like yes life can be hard but it can also be beautiful But the only way it's going to be beautiful is if you are willing to look through certain glasses that say, you know what? Life isn't that bad. And you know what?
Thankfully, I have my mother who is alive and who is able to pick up the phone here and there versus not at all. Or let me just be really grateful for this day and age and how I have all of these free resources at my fingertips where when I am done work, I can go and I can research and I can learn and I can watch lectures and I can get free books from the library and I can do the things that I need to do and educate myself the way I need to be in order to get out of these situations. Be more grateful for the things that you do have in your life because I promise you that will take you to where you need to be. And when you hit your goals, you will have that part of you that has always been okay with the opposite.
So that when life ebbs and flows because it does and when life requires you to want more because it will, you will be here in the present moment and you will stop only living for that goal. for that end destination. Because what you will realize is there is always something to work towards.
There's always something else. There will always be. And now in my life, can I say that the things that I want that are not something that I have right now are probably easier to attain? Yes. But at the end of the day, there are still more things that I want to accomplish and more things that I want to do.
But what I will say is I am very, very proud and I am so happy that I decided. to get my life in order and to take responsibility over my life and to drop the victim mentality and to put in the work and the time and the effort that I needed to do to make it so I have the life that I live now. And that's so it is easier for when I do have those lows.
And I really do think that that was something that allowed me to get out of my circumstances a lot quicker was that gratitude piece. And I will say this when I get sick, when a relationship thing happens, when I'm sad about a family thing, when things are not feeling motivating when it comes to work or whatever. I can honestly say that the life that I've created for myself really feels a lot easier for me to hold myself in because of the work that I put in when I was younger. And that is what I will always take with me when it comes to understanding the importance of sacrificing some of your time and your energy and putting in that work.
You will not regret putting in that work and putting your time and attention to your own path and saying no to things that don't serve you and to hold boundaries and to grind essentially. So I hope this episode helped in some way. These are things that I have learned over my years truly.
These are things that I still live by. These are things that I wrote about in my book. The reason why I have my book, the reason why I have my podcast, my YouTube, TikTok, the way that I was successful with all of these things, getting myself out of debt, getting my health in the best place that it's ever been, getting my mental health in the best place it's ever been, healing, learning, educating myself, being the smartest version of me that I've ever been and I still have to learn so much more is from these mindset shifts, is from being resilient and being strong and understanding that nobody is going to do this.
other than me. And it doesn't mean that I can't ask for help and I can't feel my feelings and I can't be mad at the world. Yes, all of those things are absolutely amazing, but you do need to check yourself and you do need to do more for yourself and you do need to show up for yourself because you deserve it.
And you didn't deserve the things that were handed to you. You didn't deserve the hurt. You didn't ask for the unhealthy dynamics that you've created with people based off of your childhood attachment styles or... You didn't ask for diseases, autoimmune diseases or this, that, and the third. But from personal experience, I did not heal from any of these things by believing that there wasn't going to be a way out and by not taking action and advocating for myself.
So I'm wishing everyone a lot of peace throughout the time that you are currently in the phase, the chapter, whatever. I have been there and I am still. going through so many different things on different levels. And that's actually very beautiful because I think that there's a lot of wisdom and lessons to be learned and had from these deep, dark, sometimes holes that you can get into, even if you don't know the answers. And quite frankly, that is why I'm speaking on this.
podcast today. That's why I have my book. That's why I do the things that I do is because of me looking at my darkest days and the hardest times like lessons. Like there's something to be seen here. There's something to be known about what's going on here.
There's a reason. Let me use this situation as motivation, as inspiration, as This is a part of my journey. And I can tell you, when I got diagnosed with ulcerative colitis and financial situations and my mom's situation and when my father passed away all these times, you think that I had this mindset of being like, oh, this is a lesson.
This is a part of my puzzle. No, I didn't. But what I did have was strength.
What I did have was I don't want to live this life and I am not going to let it. It's either this or... You can take me to the grave, okay? You know that saying with 50 Cent where it's like, I'd rather get rich or die trying? It's that mentality.
It's like, there's no other option but to grow and heal from this. No matter how long it takes, I want you to have that mindset. Do not give up on yourself. Do not give up on your life. You have one life.
Make it count. And one day you will look back and be like, ah, makes sense. These things all make sense. It doesn't need to make sense right now. Just stay focused, have faith in yourself, give yourself compassion, give yourself grace, and you got it.
I already know you got it if you're listening to this episode. So I hope you guys enjoyed and I'll see you in the next one. Bye.