School of Self-Image

Have you ever felt like life knocked you down, and you weren’t sure how to get back up?

I’ve been there. More times than I’d like to admit.

There were seasons when I felt like I’d lost my spark, my confidence, or even my sense of direction. I thought, “Maybe it’s just not meant for me anymore.”

But here’s the thing about making a comeback – it’s never too late.

It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been stuck, how far off course you’ve wandered, or how many times you’ve tried before. You can always choose to start again.

One of the most powerful lessons I’ve learned is that a comeback isn’t about erasing the past or pretending the struggle didn’t happen. It’s about owning every part of the journey – the wins, the losses, the messy in-betweens – and using it as fuel to rise again.

There’s something fierce about a woman who’s been knocked down but refuses to stay there.

She gets back up, not because it’s easy, but because she’s decided that her story doesn’t end in defeat.

If you’re in that place right now – feeling unsure, tired, or even a little broken – just know this:

You are more resilient than you think. Your next chapter is just waiting for you to claim it.

Start small. One decision. One step. One moment of courage.
You don’t need to have it all figured out to begin again.

I’m right there with you. Let’s make a comeback.

With so much love & belief in you,

The Phoenix PrincipleIt’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up.

~ often attributed to Vince Lombardi

The phoenix doesn’t simply survive the flames – it uses them as fuel for transformation. Every woman who has ever risen from difficulty knows this truth: You don’t come back the same. You come back evolved.

What burns away isn’t loss; it’s everything that was never truly you. The setback becomes the setup. The ending becomes the beginning. What felt like your breaking point becomes your breakthrough.

Your comeback isn’t about returning to who you were before the fire. It’s about rising from the ashes with the wisdom of what you’ve endured and the power of what you’ve overcome.

Tower 28 SOSI Daily Rescue Facial SprayThe Tower 28 SOS Daily Rescue Facial Spray has rescued my skin more times than I can count – especially during those weeks when stress shows up on my face before I even realize I’m stressed.

A quick spritz calms irritation almost instantly, and unlike other “soothing” products, this one delivers. No fragrance, no fuss, just results. It’s perfect for those days when your skin and your confidence both need to make a comeback.

Purchase the Facial SprayHow to Create Your Comeback StoryWhat makes some people rise stronger while others stay stuck? This week, I’m exploring the practical steps that turn setbacks into comebacks.

We’ll dive into the stories we tell ourselves about failure, the power of reframing your narrative, and how to rebuild momentum when everything feels uphill. Because comeback stories aren’t just inspiring – they’re strategic.

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Listen to the Full Episode:Decisons That Empower: Creating Clarity in Your Life

Indecision is a common struggle that many people face, often leading to feelings of frustration and stagnation. Tonya Leigh emphasizes that indecision drains your power and creates paralysis in your life. When you find yourself stuck in a cycle of overthinking and uncertainty, it can feel as though you are spinning in circles, unable to move forward. This state of indecision not only saps your energy but also prevents you from generating the momentum necessary for growth and progress.

She shares her recent experiences of making bold financial and business decisions that have fueled her excitement and confidence. Tonya emphasizes how much time we often spend in indecision about various aspects of our lives, from what to wear to career choices, and how this indecision can drain our energy and hinder progress. Throughout the episode, she introduces her personal decision filter, designed to help listeners make aligned and confident choices.

Tune in to discover how to break free from indecision and start creating momentum in your life!

Episode Details:00:37 - The Power of Making Decisions

02:55 - The Myth of Wrong Decisions

04:10 - The Importance of the Second Decision

05:55 - Creating a Decision Filter

06:17 - Aligning with What Matters

08:03 - Voting for Your Future Self

11:20 - Love or Fear?

14:09 - One-Way or Two-Way Door

18:31 - Embracing Decisiveness

19:17 - Sweet Spot Playbook

Useful Resources: Click HERE for The Sweet Spot Playbook * Click HERE to join the Membership * Click HERE for a FREE download * Click HERE* to sign up for our weekly newsletter, The Edit

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Click HERE to subscribe to our YouTube channel DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:Have you ever felt stuck in indecision, like you're spinning in circles while waiting for the right answer to magically appear? The truth is, powerful women don't wait for clarity, they create through intentional decisions. In this episode, I'm going to be sharing my personal decision filter to help you make aligned confident choices in every area of your life. So let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello. Hello friends. How are we doing? Are we feeling good? Are we feeling excited? Are we feeling powerful? Because I am. And I want to talk to you about why I'm feeling so excited and powerful. And it really comes down to one thing. I have been making powerful decisions lately. A lot of them. In fact, I just hung up from a call with my financial advisor and I just made a big powerful financial decision. I've been making a lot of decisions in my business, one of which I'm going to be announcing next week, have something exciting to share with you about the summer. I've just been making a lot of decisions and I've been thinking a lot about this because a lot of what I coach women in the membership on is making a decision.

I want you to think about how much of your life you spend in indecision. You don't know what you want to wear, you don't know where you want to go to dinner, you don't know where you want to go on vacation, you don't know if you should stay or go, you don't know if you should take this job or stay in your current one. And the one thing that I have discovered throughout my life is that indecision just zaps your power. Being indecisive keeps you from moving forward. It keeps you from creating momentum in your life. I want you to think of it like this.

Let's say you're at the airport and you're standing in front of two gates. One is we'll just say it's going to New York. The other one is going to Miami. And you're sitting there thinking, "Well, a part of me wants a weekend in the city. I want to go see some shows. I want to experience some dinners. But then there's this other part of me that really just wants to go be in the sunshine. I want to go sit by a pool. And in the meantime, the gate attendant is saying, "Last call for boarding." And you're over there negotiating with yourself as to where you want to go. And before you know it, the gates are closed and both planes are taken off and you're not on either one of them.

You're simply standing there right where you were stuck in your own life simply because you didn't decide which plane to get on. Now, why is it so hard to make a decision? And the reason why it's so hard is that we believe in wrong decisions. And I will tell you, for me personally, I have just decided that there are no wrong decisions, they're just decisions that I learn from. There are decisions that are going to teach me something. There are decisions that are going to reveal to me maybe what I won't do or what I will do next time I make a decision. But every time I make a decision, what I have noticed is that I get my power back.

Decisions give you power. Indecision, it leaks your power. It creates more overwhelm, more overthinking and more paralysis in your own life. To me, decisions is like getting dressed in the morning. You can stand in front of your closet for 30 minutes in indecision, trying things on second, guessing everything, or you can just decide and wear it with confidence and move on with your day. Because the truth is, it's not always about the perfect outfit, it's about choosing and owning it.

And the same is true with decisions. Most of the time, it's not about making the right one, it's just about making it powerful by how you live out that decision. One of the things that I have repeated over and over to the members of the School of Self-Image I tell them the most important decision isn't the first one. It's not the decision itself, it's the second one. And that's deciding how you are going to feel about your decision. Because even for those of you who make decisions, you spend so much energy doubting your decisions, regretting your decisions, second guessing your decisions, and all that does is it just slows down the momentum on the decision that you made.

Whenever I make a decision, I decide in that moment I am going to have my own back on that decision, I'm going to feel confident about that decision even if it doesn't work out. I made a decision this year. I hired someone and I was confident about it until I wasn't. The moment I realized this isn't working, I re-decided. But guess what happened? In that moment of making that decision and learning and re-deciding, I had gotten so much further along than the person who's still trying to decide, "Should I hire someone?" and is taking so much time in making a decision. Now, with that said, in business, I do believe in hiring slow and firing fast.

And to my team's credit, we went through a very thorough hiring process and even still a month into it, I just knew, I knew that I needed to make a new decision. Now, I didn't sit around and judge the decision is bad. I didn't say, "Oh my God, you made such a terrible decision. How dare you?" Because it wasn't a terrible decision. I learned so much. Just because something doesn't work out doesn't mean it's a terrible decision. Have you ever considered you needed to go through that to understand how to make the decision in a more powerful way in the future?

There were things that you needed to experience in that decision to help you with whatever you're going to be facing in the future. And so I never look at decisions as bad decisions. I never look at it that way. I look at everything through the lens of I am learning, I am growing. And because of that, I've gotten really good at making decisions. I'm excited for them. I'm excited as to whether they're going to lead me where I want to go or what they're going to teach me that's going to help me get to where I want to go. Now, with all of that said, I want to talk about how to make powerful decisions.

Now, what I want to encourage each of you to do is to create a decision filter for your life. This is something that we have implemented in my business that has been so incredibly helpful and helping us make aligned decisions and quicker decisions. Before every meeting, someone on the team reads our decision filter. I also have one for my life, and I'm going to share that one with you today, and you're welcome to use this one. If you want to tweak it for your own life, that's great. But this is how I like to think about making decisions. I call this my Self-Image Decision Filter. So the first thing that I do is a values check.

Now, this is going to require that you spend some time getting to know what your values are. This is why one of the first things that women do when they come into the membership and they go through the self-image method is that they have to get very clear on their values because that becomes the foundation for your life. If you are making decisions without knowing your values, without checking in with your values, chances are you're making decisions that don't feel aligned. And no wonder you feel frustrated. Or maybe you're not making decisions because you haven't even checked to ask yourself, "Is this what matters to me most?"

So when I think about a values check, I love to ask myself, "Is this aligned with what matters most to me?" So a recent example that I can share with you is that I was invited to speak at this high profile event, but the energy felt off. It was a very hustle, heavy, very bro marketing kind of event. And when I thought about the kind of leader that I am, when I thought about my values of beauty, connection and inspiration, it just didn't feel like a good fit for me. And so I said, no. It was a very easy decision. Even though it would've been great for exposure, even though I probably could have made some really incredible connections, it was not aligned with my values.

It was an easy decision because I know what's most important to me. So that's number one, a values check. The second one is a vision check. So a vision check is going to require that you spend some time really creating a vision for your future. Again, a lot of the reasons why decisions feel so hard is that you don't have a clear vision, you don't know your values, you don't know who you are. And so of course, you don't have the foundation in which to make powerful decisions. But when you know who you are, what you value, where you're going, making decisions becomes so much easier.

So when it comes to your values check, not your values, but your vision check, you need to ask yourself, "Does this move me closer to my dream life?" So let's say for example, you are wanting a beautiful romantic partnership and you have a vision for what that looks like. You value stability, passion and supportiveness. And so you meet someone and you can tell, "Oh my God, this is going to be thrilling, but it's also going to be chaotic. I can already sense that this is not going to lead me to that stable, supportive and passionate vision that I have for a relationship."

You recognize the pattern and you choose to walk away, creating space for the kind of relationship you truly want. So you need to ask yourself, "What is my vision for my future?" And I just realized, I had not planned to put this into this episode, but I think it'd be a great resource for you. The Sweet Spot Playbook, it asks you to get really clear on your vision in every area of your life. Because again, when you have that vision, you know what's a no and what's a yes. You can feel, "Oh, this is going to take me closer to what I want. This is going to take me further away."

So if you have not downloaded that resource yet, you can go to schoolofselfimage.com/sweetspot, all one word, get it and spend some time with yourself asking yourself, "What do I want? What is my dream life? What really matters to me?" Once you have all of that in place, again, it's going to be so easy to make powerful decisions. So again, go to schoolofselfimage.com/sweetspot and get that guide. It's going to be super helpful for today's episode. Now, the next check that I like to do in order to make powerful decisions is what I call a self-image check.

And the question to ask yourself is, "Is this a vote for the woman I'm becoming?" So good. Is this a vote for the woman that I'm becoming? Because every decision that you make is either reinforcing your past self or your future self. So let's just take a business example. Maybe you're deciding on whether to raise your prices or not and you feel a little nervous. But when you ask yourself, "What would the woman I'm becoming do?" the answer is clear. It's going to be clear. And I'm not going to tell you if it's raised the price or not because I don't know that for you. It's going to depend on a host of things.

I think most people will say, "Oh, she raises her prices," not necessarily. So get clear on your vision, get clear on your values, and get clear on the woman that you're becoming, and then ask yourself that question. It's so incredibly powerful. Even when I'm shopping now, I'll ask myself, "Is this a vote for the woman I'm becoming?" And sometimes that means I don't buy it. Believe it or not, I think sometimes we run these fantasies of, "Oh, the woman we're becoming, she raises her prices, she buys the designer bags," not necessarily.

The woman I'm becoming, she is creating wealth. And so that means sometimes saying no to the thing that I'm tempted to buy. We're going to talk about another check that we're going to do in a moment that will bring you even more clarity. So carrying this question with you is so incredibly powerful. You think about should I stay or should I go? Well, think about you in the future, the vision that you're creating and the woman you're becoming, does she stay where she is or does she leave? And again, I don't know the answer for you, only you know that. But this is a very powerful question to ask yourself.

So at this point, we've done the values check, we've done the vision check, and we've done the self-image check. Just those three checks in your decision filter will give you so much clarity. But I have four more that I want to offer you that are super helpful. The fourth one is a gut check. Your body knows often before your brain does. Ask yourself, "What does my body say?" Most people when it comes to decisions are all up in their head. They're in the head that likes to make everything super complex.

They're in their head that's full of fear and anxiety and overwhelm, and they're trying to make decisions from there, which often causes them to make decisions that only perpetuate those very same emotions that they're trying to escape. But when you get into your body, and when I'm talking about gut, I'm talking about your intuition. Now, listen, a lot of women confuse fear with intuition. I've had so many women come to me and they'll be like, "Oh, this just doesn't feel right." I'm like, "Well, tell me more about that." And when they start talking about their feeling, it's not a body intuitive feeling, it's a fear feeling.

What's really happening is that they're afraid of being judged, they're afraid of failing, they're afraid of getting it wrong. And so they confuse that with intuition, that discomfort. But what I've learned about intuition is that it's very quiet, it's very calm. It whispers to you. Fear is panic. Fear is very loud. Fear causes you to shut down where I feel like intuition causes you to expand and open up. Now, once you make a decision based off intuition, you're probably going to have some fear around it, and that's okay. That's why I love the tools that we teach in the membership.

We learn how to navigate that fear and all of that discomfort, which is simply the discomfort of the unknown. But when you listen to your body, your body knows. How many times have you been facing a decision, fear gets involved and you listen to the fear? And when you can go back, you can look at it, you're like, "God, my body told me to take the job" or "My body told me to walk away, but I listened to the fear and I did the exact opposite and it didn't lead to an outcome that I actually liked."

So check in with your body because the body hosts so many past experiences, pattern recognition. The body also can sense and feel when things just aren't aligned. And so we have to learn to tune into and trust our own bodies. And I've just gotten really good at intuitively just knowing and making decisions quickly based off of that knowing. Because I think at the end of the day, for me, I know no matter what the result is, I'm going to figure it out and it's going to make me even better. So I'm not afraid of it anymore, but my body often knows the answer way before my brain does.

So let's say, for example, someone offers to partner on a project and it looks great on paper, but when you think about moving forward, something just feels off, you feel uneasy, your chest tightens a little bit. That is your body saying no. Trust it and politely decline. I've been working with my business coach and the other day he made a suggestion to me and I felt it in my body. It was a huge, no. It was not fear-based. It was not a no coming from anxiety. It was just a knowing of my business, of my team. And I told him, I'm like, "I respect your decision. I can understand why you think that, but I just know where we are right now, this is not the decision for us."

It just became a no. He wanted to argue with me about it. I was like, "You can argue, but I just know it's a no right now.' Now, again, it's very crucial that you understand the difference between intuition and fear because there have been moments in my life where a coach, a mentor, offered me a suggestion and I immediately said no and it was coming from fear. I had hit the edge of my self-image and it didn't seem possible for me. So I rationalized it with no, no. And I tried to pretend that was intuition, when really it was just fear.

But in this situation, the difference was, number one, I want to be challenged now. I want to be offered all of the possibilities. I love when someone can step outside and see the larger picture because when you're in it, you can't always see it. But with this particular decision, it was a calmness. It wasn't me fighting for my limitations, it was me just honoring my values, it was me honoring my gut, it was me honoring my vision. All of those things in place helped me to make this decision with so much clarity. So check in with your bodies, ladies. Your body knows. The fifth check that is very helpful is your motivation check, what's driving this decision.

And it comes down to this question, is it love or fear? Okay? So let me just give you an example. We'll talk about the shopping example. If I'm standing at the counter about to check out with a designer handbag and I am feeling a lot of anxiety, a lot of fear, now that could mean that I've hit a self-image edge, which has happened to me before. Right? It's something that I've deeply wanted for a long time. I've not allowed myself to purchase it, to have it. I've had all of these stories. And so in those moments, it's fear trying to keep me from purchasing the thing.

Now equally, there have been moments where that anxiety, that feeling of unease has been motivated by me realizing I'm purchasing this thing to maybe feel worthy, to feel good enough. Because it's not about the thing. That's the thing, it's not about the thing. It's always about what is this decision. Another example is let's just say you're about to launch a program because you're feeling the pressure to make something happen, but when you ask yourself what's driving it, you realize it's the fear of missing out.

It's not being driven by inspiration, wanting to add value, being excited about this thing you get to put out in the world. It's being driven by a fear of missing out. Maybe it's being driven by scarcity. And so when those kinds of motivations are revealed to you, what I suggest that you do is pause, regroup, and create from clarity instead of chaos. I've seen this so much, especially in business. When you make decisions from fear, it just leads to more fear because what you're doing is you are creating a self-image of a woman who is full of lack, full of scarcity.

And here's the crazy thing, you can launch something, it can actually go well, but you're still in a state of panic. You're still never trusting that life is working out for you. You're never trusting an abundance. And so you never deal with the core issue of what's driving those decisions in the first place. And it's always going to come back to self-image work. And so until you stop and say, "Hey, what's motivating this? Am I being driven by fear, ego, urgency, pressure, lack, or is it coming from love and curiosity and abundance and trust and excitement?"

Until you get clear on your motivations, chances are you're never going to feel confident in your decisions. Because decisions made from fear just lead to more fear and decisions made from power lead to more power. And so we have to be very clear on what's motivating our decisions. The sixth check that I love to do with my Decision Filter is what I call the speed check. And the question is, how fast can I decide and learn? One of the things that I've seen, a quality that I've seen in very successful people, is that they make decisions and they make them quickly.

Think about it like this. Let's say for example, it takes you a month to make a decision, and I make that decision in a day. Even if I make that decision in a day and it's not a great decision, doesn't work out, I can learn from that decision and already find a different solution and make a different decision faster than it takes you to make one decision. Now all of that stacks up. Over time, speed is going to win because I am making decisions faster. I'm learning, I'm growing, I'm course correcting way faster than the person that it takes a whole month to make one decision.

And not only that, when you make decisions quickly, you don't have time to overthink it. You trust your intuition, you make a decision and you move on. Versus the more time you give yourself often to make a decision, the more you overthink, the more you feel paralyzed and the more you stay stuck. Now, if decisions equal momentum, which they do, think about who's going to get where they want to go faster, the person who's making quicker decisions or the person that it takes a long time to make a decision? Again, it's going to be the person making the quicker decisions that gets there faster every single time.

So learning to make decisions, fail, learn, grow, re-decide, that is the secret to success. It is not, I am convinced, you all, it is not the smartest or the most talented people that are successful. It's those of us who make decisions quick, who aren't afraid to fail, who learn, get back on the field and try again. Have that persistence, that tenacity, and that quickness in their decision making. And that's something you can do. Think about a decision right now that maybe you've been thinking about for weeks, months, maybe even years.

Think about how that has slowed you down. Right now, you could get your power back by deciding. Isn't that fun to consider? And yes, it's going to be scary. The brain is going to fight you, but when you learn to feel your emotions, when you learn to understand that they're being driven by scary thoughts in your mind and you learn how to think on purpose, then you have the tools to get behind your decisions. So that's number six, the speed check. How fast can I decide and learn? Because you don't need more time, you need more trust. That's the reality.

Now, the next one's going to be interesting because it may seem as if it contradicts the one that I just said, but it actually works beautifully with it. Because speed of decision doesn't mean that you make a decision in a split second, right? It just means that you make a decision when you've gathered the information and you have a knowing and you just decide. We don't want to make reckless decisions. So speed doesn't necessarily mean, "Oh my God, I need to make a decision right now." But it also doesn't mean that you wait forever, right?

Speed is going to be different depending on the decision. There are going to be some decisions that we're facing that we don't want to make super fast, but we don't want to slow ourselves down unnecessarily either. So I call this one the reversibility check. And this is actually based off of something that I heard Jeff Bezos say one time that was really, really useful when it comes to making decisions. And he calls it the one-way or two-way door. Because not every decision is permanent and you need to know the difference.

When you are facing a high stakes, an irreversible decision, which is like a type one decision, that's when you may want to slow down a little bit and really move thoughtfully, really think about the potential downsides, think about are you willing to deal with the worst case scenario if it were to happen. These are decisions that are one-way doors. Once you go through it, you can't come back. And those you don't want to make super fast unless you just know, unless you're like, you know, you have all of the data, all of the information, and maybe the reason why you aren't making that decision is you're just afraid.

That's when you need to get on board. But sometimes we need to collect more data, we need to maybe bring some other ideas to the table, more options to the table, and really think it through. And this is when I would do a lot of the work that I talked about previously, really getting to know what's really important to me. What is my vision? Who is the woman that I'm becoming? I find that these type one decisions, these irreversible ones, they're so much easier to answer when you have that foundation in place. But type two decisions are the low stakes and reversible ones. These are the ones where I want you to practice deciding quickly over and over again. Don't wait. You can change it.

It's not a irreversible decision. So let me just give you a business example for this one. Let's say I want to test selling a new course on something. That's a quick decision, that's not irreversible. I can test it, see if it works, see what I like about it, what can be better about it. It's not a major structural change to my business. I can launch it to a limited audience, I can test it, I can adjust messaging. I can do all of that, or I can just scrap it and say, "This didn't work."

Those are the decisions, act quickly, decide, act, learn, keep the momentum going. Now, back in 2020, I made an irreversible decision. I decided to burn down my old brand and create School of Self-Image. That was a one-way door, and that was a decision that I made over the course of many months of really thinking about the motivation behind it, thinking about my values, thinking about my vision, thinking about my own self-image, and how I had grown as a woman and what I was ready to step into. That was not an overnight, "Let's just burn it all down because I'm having a bad day."

It was a very thought out decision. It was a one way door decision. Now, looking back for the enormity of that decision, I do think I did it pretty quickly, but it wasn't done in a day. It wasn't done even in a week or a month. I spent a lot of time really thinking that decision through, and more than anything, spending that time getting myself on board with the new decision because that was the most important part of that equation.

Had I gone into that doubting, second guessing and being full of fear, it would not have worked out as well as it has. It's been beyond my wildest dream. But it was one of those irreversible decisions that I wanted to go into very thoughtfully, very intentionally. When I think about irreversible decisions, I think about things like leaving a marriage, leaving a job, anything where you can't go back. Now, one could argue you can always go back to that job if they'll have. You can always go back to the marriage if that person will welcome you back. But for the most part, those types of decisions they do render the need for more thoughtfulness.

But again, speed is relative, right? Making that decision in six months might be a speedy decision relative to the thing that you're making the decision about. But on type two decisions, the low stakes, reversible ones, learn to make those really quickly. Just put the program out there, see how it works. Go for the interview, wear the dress, book the trip. All of those things are not irreversible. You're going to learn so much. And on the ones that are irreversible, spend some time getting to know who you are, what you really, really want, what you value. And even those, make those decisions quickly relative to the thing that you're deciding about.

Because here's the thing, you gain confidence not by being perfect, but by moving forward and refining as you go. So that's number seven. Number eight, and the final part of my Decision Filter is what I call the win-win check. Sometimes there is a way to honor both or several desires. Many times what we're deciding between is it this or is it that? And I love this question, is there a way to honor all of it? Because sometimes the choice isn't either or, it's yes and. And we limit ourselves when we look at life through such a myopic lens. So ask yourself, is there a way that you can honor both?

Or what would this look like if you assume both options could succeed? Remember, the quality of your life will be a reflection of the quality of your questions. And we often limit ourselves with our questions. We ask ourselves, which one is it going to be versus how can it be both? And so do a win-win check because maybe there's a world in which both of the things that you are deciding around can coexist together. A great example boils down to what I'm going to be announcing next week.

And without going into too much detail, I was thinking about it as I can either do this or that. And then I was like, "Wait, I think there's a way to honor what I deeply want for the summer and also stay extremely connected to my community." That's all I'm going to say for now before I give it away. And I came out of that even more excited. What felt at first as very limiting and didn't feel great, but I knew it's what I needed, turned into this creative brainstorming process for myself where I was like, "Oh my God, I'm more excited than ever." And it's because I did this win-win check.

How can I do this and that? Which led me to come up with so many other solutions that I would've never seen had I looked at it as it's got to either be this or that. Because here's what you need to know, powerful women don't choose between desire and alignment. They create solutions that honor both. So there you have it, folks. That is my Decision Filter for making powerful decisions. And at the end of the day, I feel like decisiveness is a self-image skill. When you see yourself as a decisive woman, guess what you're going to do? You're going to make decisions and lots of them, and every decision is going to teach you something.

It's going to move you along on your path much more quickly. Because your life right now is a result of decisions. Think about it. What you're experiencing right now is a result of decisions. So if you want your life to look and feel different, you're going to have to make different decisions. And every time you make a decision, what you are doing is you're telling yourself, "I am a woman who decides. I'm a woman who trusts herself. I'm a woman who has momentum in her life. I'm a woman who is taking action.

I'm a woman who knows what she wants, and I'm willing to say yes and no to the things that will help me get there or not get there." And you also know that every graceful pivot builds the kind of self-trust that changes your life. So make a commitment to yourself to more decisive and use this filter that I just offered you, make it your own. Maybe you want to tweak it, maybe you want to add some other checks in for yourself. But it really does boil down to you need to know who you are, you need to know what you want, and you need to know who you're becoming, and you need to trust your gut. Just those four alone will help you make more powerful decisions.

And then when you add in the motivation check, the speed check, the reversibility check and the win-win check, that is a framework for making powerful decisions in your life. Now, don't forget, if you have not downloaded The Sweet Spot Playbook, that really helps you get clear on your vision and your values and your essence, that self-image. Go to schoolofselfimage.com/sweetspot and get that guide and give yourself self the beautiful experience of an hour or two with yourself, really thinking about where you're going, who you need to be to get there, and what matters to you most. All right, my friends, I hope you have the most beautiful week, I hope you make some powerful decisions, and I hope I'll see you in next week's episode. Cheers.

Before you go, I have a beautiful gift for you, especially if you're craving more ease, alignment, and clarity in your life. It's called The Sweet Spot Playbook, and it's completely free. Inside, I will guide you through a powerful four-step process to help you define what truly matters, clarify the woman you want to be, and start living from that energy starting today. So if you're done with the hustle, the confusion, and the endless striving, and you're ready to feel good while creating the life you want, this playbook is for you. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/sweetspot to download your free copy. Because when you find your sweet spot, life doesn't just work better, it feels better. I'll see you there.

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Let’s be honest – sometimes life doesn’t go as planned.

You set big intentions, envision how it’s all going to unfold, and then reality does what reality does – throws curveballs, challenges, and unexpected detours.

But here’s a mindset shift that changed everything for me:
Who cares what’s happened? Where are you now, and where are you going?

It’s easy to get caught up in what didn’t work, where you fell short, or how things didn’t go as planned. But spending energy replaying the past only keeps you stuck in it.

What if you decided, right here and now, to let it all go? To release the stories about how it “should” have been and focus instead on where you’re heading?

Imagine asking yourself:

Who do I want to be by the end of the year?
What do I want to feel proud of?
How can I look back and say, “Yes, I did that”?

When you decide to focus on where you’re going, something magical happens.

You reclaim your power.

You stop dwelling on the missteps.

You start stepping into the next chapter with intention and excitement.

Are you ready for a reset? If so, join us inside the School of Self-Image this month.I’m leading members through The Mid-Year Reset, where you’ll get clear on where you’re going, learn how to collapse timelines, achieve more in less time, and make the next 6 months your best yet!

It’s not about what’s happened. It’s about where you’re going. And we’re doing it together.

If you’re not a member, join us inside the School of Self-Image, and let’s reset!

With love & determination,

The Art of RevivalIt’s never too late to be what you might have been.

~ George Eliot

A reset isn’t about erasing what’s happened but choosing what happens next. Every moment is an invitation to begin again. To shed the weight of yesterday’s expectations. To step into tomorrow’s possibilities.

The most elegant transformations don’t require perfect timing or ideal circumstances. They require presence. The courage to look at where you are without judgment and ask: “What would I create from here?”

Gisou Honey-Infused Hair OilI just have to share this Gisou honey-infused hair oil – it’s basically magic in a bottle. A couple of drops before styling your hair, and suddenly you have that glossy, expensive-looking finish that makes people wonder what salon you just walked out of.

The Mirsalehi honey formula is genius – it gives you shine without the grease. Smoothness without the weight. Plus, it smells like you’ve been hanging out in the world’s most luxurious beehive (in the best way possible).

It’s become my effortless secret weapon. Bad hair day? Oil. Good hair day that needs a little extra? Oil. Hair that just needs to cooperate while I figure out the rest of my life? You guessed it… oil.

Purchase the Hair OilHow to Make the Next Six Months Your Best YetFeeling like this year has been a bit of a mixed bag? You’re not alone. In this week’s episode, I’m diving into why mid-year can be the perfect time to redirect and refocus.

We’ll talk about the mindset shifts that make all the difference when you’re ready to turn the page, why “starting over” is actually a superpower, and how to approach the second half of the year with intention instead of pressure.

This conversation is for anyone ready to stop looking backward and start moving forward with clarity and confidence. Because the best plot twists happen when you decide to write them yourself.

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Listen to the Full Episode:The Change Cycle: How to Bounce Back Better Than Ever

Setbacks are an inevitable part of life. While they can feel overwhelming, they also present unique opportunities for growth and transformation. Embracing the emotions that accompany these challenges is crucial for moving forward effectively.

Host Tonya Leigh shares insights from her recent quarterly retreat with her leadership team. She emphasizes the importance of regular check-ins to maintain momentum and accountability in both personal and professional growth. Tonya discusses the inevitable setbacks we face in life and how they are essential for appreciating the highs and teaching us valuable lessons. Whether you're currently thriving or facing challenges, this episode serves as a reminder that lows can help us shed what no longer serves us and pave the way for renewal and growth.

Tune in for an uplifting conversation that encourages self-reflection and resilience.

Episode Details:01:08 - Importance of Regular Touch Points

03:05 - Feeling Hopeless and Needing Tools

07:03 - Allowing Yourself to Break Open

10:14 - Identity Crisis and Letting Go

18:19 - Creating a Desire List

22:14 - Choosing One Focus

25:08 - Dealing with Imposter Syndrome

28:04 - Falling in Love with the Process

32:08 - Internalizing a New Self-Image

34:42 - No Timeline for Your Comeback

00:35:58 - Comeback Challenge

Useful Resources: Click HERE to join the Membership * Click HERE for a FREE download * Click HERE* to sign up for our weekly newsletter, The Edit

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Click HERE to subscribe to our YouTube channel DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:Let me ask you something. Have you ever found yourself in a season of your life where it just feels like everything is falling apart? Maybe it's a breakup that you're going through or you receive a diagnosis or you're just hitting obstacle after obstacle and it feels like you just can't overcome it, and you're not even sure of who you are anymore, let alone where you're going. Maybe it's you feeling like your life no longer fits, but you're not quite sure what does. Well, in this episode, I'm going to share a very useful framework that I have used for years to understand the cycle of change so that I can continue to reinvent myself and keep the momentum going in my life. If this resonates with you, you are going to love today's episode. Without further ado, my friend, let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Good morning, my friends, or good afternoon, good evening, whenever you're listening to this. I hope things are good. I'm actually up early because my team is in town and we have been meeting for a quarterly retreat. So every three months my leadership team flies in and we have the best time, talk about joyfully hustling. We play games. We laugh a lot. We go to dinners. We go for walks, but we also get some work done. We spend a day really looking at the last quarter, looking at our own growth, looking at some of our failures, and we recommit. We redesign. These quarterly retreats have been an amazing tool to keep the momentum going because I talked about it in last week's podcast, but often what happens is you start the year out and maybe it's you with you thinking about your personal life or maybe it's you with your team and you set all of these goals and then without regular touch points, it's easy to get off track. It's easy to let that energy fizzle, and so having these quarterly touch points have been so incredible, so good.

Now, let's talk about today's topic. If you are someone and your life is going really well right now and you're excited and you're on fire and you are ready, then just save this episode for a future time because inevitably you're going to need it. In life, we all have setbacks. It's part of the experience. You can't appreciate the highs without the lows. The lows are there to teach us. The lows are there to burn parts of us down that no longer serve us, and they're just a part of life.

I ran into an old friend the other day that I haven't seen in years, and she was telling me that she's had a really, really rough she couple of years, she lost her job. She has recently found out that her husband is having an affair and one of her parents is sick. It's like everything is happening all at once for her. On top of that, she was like, "Tonya, I just haven't been taking care of myself, so I feel physically terrible." It reminds me of many of my members who are in the school that come in and they're just at a point of something's got to change.

Listen, I've certainly been there. I know what it's like to feel like you're at rock bottom and to feel like there's no hope, to feel like you don't know what to do, where to go. You can feel hopeless. You can feel scared. You can feel stuck, and it's in those moments that you need tools because with the right tools, this setback isn't a detour, it's actually an invitation, and that's what I want to talk to you about today and one of the best frameworks that I have ever read, studied, learned, and applied that really supports change because that's what setbacks are. They are asking us to change, where change is being forced upon us because a setback is usually the result of a failure or a plot twist that you weren't expecting.

Maybe you get a diagnosis out of nowhere. Maybe your best friend breaks your heart. Maybe a project that you had so much faith in and hope in is a complete failure. There are so many ways that life can surprise us with unexpected things that feel really hard. So I want to present to you a tool that has really, really supported me, that's allowed me to come back from setbacks and not only come back, but come back better than ever. That's the intention that I want you to hold for yourself. One of the quotes from Abraham Hicks that I love is the harder the fall, the higher the bounce. So if you're falling right now, just know if you don't fight it, if you don't resist it, if you just allow the universe to work on you, you are going to bounce back higher than ever.

So the tool that I'm referring to is from Martha Beck. For those of you who don't know, I trained with Martha Beck. I love all of her books. I love her sense of humor. I love the way she sees the world. Her tool that we were taught in coach training is called the change cycle. There are four... She calls them squares. I like to call them stages, but there are basically four stages. The first one is called death and rebirth. If you are in the middle of a major or not even major, it could just be a minor setback, it feels bad too, this is where you are, death and rebirth. What this stage feels like is numbness, disbelief, emotional exhaustion, fear, anxiety, worry. You can feel lost. You can feel disoriented. You can feel a lot of confusion. Often in this stage you try to stay strong while quietly falling apart.

This might be the stage where you wish you could just run away from your life. You just want to ignore. You want to deny. You want to pretend that everything's okay when your heart and soul knows that it isn't. You can call this the stages of reinvention because this is often what precipitates a reinvention is that you have had a setback. Something's not working in your life. You know something has to change, and yet you may find yourself resisting that change, wanting to go back to the way it was, wanting things to be different than what they are right now and that's exhausting. I love what Martha Beck says about the stage. She's like, "The mantra for this stage is I don't know what the hell is going on and that's okay."

When you are in stage, one of the things that I actually suggest is to allow yourself to break open. I remember years ago I was having a major, major setback in my life, but when people would ask me, "How are you doing?" I would just say, "I'm fine. I'm fine." I tried to put on this facade that everything was okay, and the pressure that that created in my life was... It was something that I couldn't continue to hold. It was like a champagne bottle. Everything looked good on the outside, but every time I'm fine was said, it was like I was shaking the bottle until one day the cork popped and I burst, and thank God I did because that pressure had to release. The reason why I burst is because a friend called me out. She knew what I was going through and she said, "Tonya, you're not fine. You need to stop pretending. It's okay to be human." Just having someone to hold space for me to break down was as cliche as it is, it was the beginning of a major breakthrough.

So when you're in stage one, it's important to allow yourself to feel, to cry it out, to collapse on the couch. Watch Sex in the City, watch whatever your show is. Just allow yourself to just be in it, to allow yourself to feel, because if you don't, you're going to lose access to the very thing that's going to get you into the next stage because what you need to come to terms with is, "What is going on for me? What am I actually feeling?" You want to look at what was the setback. You need to assess things. What was it? What happened? How did I contribute to it?

I love journaling. I love journaling when things are great and when things aren't so great, but this is a time where you need to grab your journal and you need to start going within. Ask yourself, "What is being called to fall away from my life and why is this a good thing?" You can even talk to the setback. "What do you want me to know?" You can begin to burn old identities through a letter, through a ritual, through a wardrobe clear out because that's what's really happening in square one. It's an identity crisis. The you that you were before is not going to be the same you that comes out of this. You are being asked to let go of the limiting beliefs. You're being asked to let go of old ways of being, old ways of doing so that you can emerge as a new you and that will never happen as long as you're resisting what is. What you resist persist. What you fight grows.

So in square one or stage one, it's so important that you allow yourself to feel, and it's not fun. It can be an awful experience, but it's what's required. Aren't you willing to feel awful for a bit in order to feel amazing? Because that's the crazy part about life, it's all about duality. It's all about contrast. How can you feel amazing if you're not also willing to feel awful? You have to be willing to feel all of it and when you do, life really does become magical. That's when you get momentum. You're not afraid to feel emotions. You're not afraid to go within yourself and figure out, "What is going on right now? Why am I feeling so afraid?" Well, maybe you're telling yourself, "I don't have what it takes." Why are you feeling so hopeless? Maybe you're telling yourself, "I'm never going to find another person like the one that just left." These are all just thoughts, but as long as you resist stage one, as long as you're not willing to feel, you'll never be able to access the thoughts that are holding you back from your comeback.

Consider stage one to be the season of identity death. The roles you played, they're crumbling, let them crumble. This is the phase of endings, of breakdowns and the dissolving of parts of your identity. The reason why this part is often so uncomfortable and scary is that the old life is falling apart and the new life hasn't arrived yet, so there's this void, but it's important to surrender to the unknown rather than resisting it. When your old life is crumbling, whether it's your relationships, your job, your body, your belief system, your identity, your natural instinct will be to grip harder, to hustle for clarity, to fix it, to push away your discomfort, but that only prolongs the pain because what's actually being asked of you in this moment isn't action, it's surrender.

I want to be clear that surrender is not giving up. It's not losing. It's not becoming passive. It's not admitting failure. I think that's why a lot of people don't want to surrender because they're like, "Oh my God, if I surrender to this, then it means nothing will change." Surrender is just letting go of the illusion of control. It's accepting what is right now and creating space for something entirely new to emerge. I like to think of it as like a sacred pause before the next breath. It's the moment of falling before the wings appear. So if you're in square one right now, if you are in the middle of your setback, just surrender to it. Allow yourself to break down, to cry, to be with what is so that you can then create what can be, and that's when you start you easing into square two. This is such a fun stage. It's called dreaming and scheming.

The mantra for this stage is there are no rules and that's okay. You will know that you are ready for stage two when you start to feel a little bit of possibility, a little bit of relief, a little bit of hope. It's like that feeling when you've cried, maybe had an all-nighter where you just bawled and you wake up the next day feeling so fresh even though your eyes are puffy. It's like you've cried the tears and now you're ready. You're ready to move on. You're ready to finally accept and step into the next part of your life. That's what it feels like. The mantra for this stage is there are no rules and that's okay. This is the phase of creative possibility and reinvention. You start to imagine a new life free from the constraints of your past identity. There are no rules here, just intuition, a lot of experimentation and vision.

This is when I really encourage people to get out, to go try new things, to expose themselves to new possibilities, to begin to switch things up. Read different books, listen to different people, go to different restaurants. Place yourself in the world so you can begin to imagine and envision again because when you do, you're going to start to have flickers of inspiration often mixed with some fear. You're going to have this desire to play, to explore or to rest, and you begin to imagine different versions of your future. So let's say for example, you've lost your job and it was such a shock and you spent maybe weeks or maybe months... There is no timeline to this. We all are on our different timelines, but you spent some time in stage one and now you start to think, "Okay. I can't stay in stage one forever. I've cried. I've processed. I'm ready. I'm ready now to begin to look at what's possible."

This might be when you start contemplating a whole different career. Maybe you start contemplating going back to school. Maybe you start talking to people and being curious about what do you do? What do you love about your work? What don't you love? You begin to place yourself in the possibility of your dreams and imagining different versions of a potential future. You also are going to feel vulnerable or unsure if you're allowed to want more, and the answer is you are. That setback happened so that you could release what was holding you back from the next level. This isn't just about more of the same. If you want to have a comeback, don't expect just more of the same. Always approach your life of something better.

I love when I envision something. I always say this or something better, allow yourself to want for better, to want for more. Don't hold back. This is when I love to have members write everything that you desire down. Do a desire list, write it all down. If you desire a mansion, write it down. If you desire a tiny house, write it down. If you desire to get fitter than you've ever been, write it down. If you desire to sit by the beach and write books, write it down. Don't censor yourself. Just allow yourself to be honest with what you want or what you may want. Maybe you don't know if you really want it, but you think about it and you're like, "Oh, that could be fun. That could be exciting." Don't get into the how. It's not the stage for that yet. Just allow yourself to dream and scheme.

You can ask yourself, "What would delight me right now?" This might be a time where you create a mood board for your new self. I love to think of this being a time of experimentation, of playful discovery, of allowing yourself to just be curious about yourself and your life. During this stage, I want you to say aloud, "I have decided I am creating my comeback story." Claim it. Words are powerful, my friends. Your brain is always listening. It is always looking for what you tell it to look for. If you tell your brain, "Hey, listen, we are creating a comeback, me and you together," and you constantly remind your brain of that, it has no other choice but to get on board.

Now, during stage two, I like to think of this stage as like a winter garden. It looks like nothing is happening above the soil, but deep underground life is organizing itself. This is not stagnation, it's gestation. I think about so often things in my life are brewing underneath, and then inevitably, six months later or a year later, people will be like, "Oh my God, you're so different." I'm like, "Yeah. Because I've been in stage two. I've been just allowing myself to play with the next versions of me. I've been allowing myself to dream and scheme about what's next. You're just seeing all of the work of the last six months to a year, but it was brewing underneath the ground all of that time."

Now, this is where your next level self-image begins to form. You are designing her energetically before anything physical changes. This is your time to dream and color and listen for the woman that you're becoming. This is why I love visualizations during this time. If you're in the membership, you all, there's a whole resource of visualizations. Go check them out. Find the one that really speaks to where you are right now because visualization is powerful. I often say the brain knows two things, the words you speak and the images you hold. When you begin to speak on purpose and hold those images in your mind, you are shaping your reality. So during stage one, it's important that you ask this, "What kind of woman would I be if I gave myself permission to want this?"

Now, once you've gone through stage two, you enter into stage three, which is considered the hero's journey. The mantra for this stage is, "This is harder than I thought it would be and that's okay." This is the action phase. This is when you begin to test and try and fell and refine. It's also the stage where most people give up. Growth doesn't feel glamorous here, but this is where your confidence is created. Now, for stage three, there are some things that I do recommend that you do for your comeback. One, you need to get clear on what you are going to create. Within the membership, I suggest one focus. Now, it doesn't mean you don't have other things that you're doing and maybe other goals, but one goal that would signify I am different.

It's going to require a different version of you. It is something that delights you and also equally terrifies you. Giving yourself that one focus is powerful because so many people don't reach their goals because they have too many. Their energy is scattered and they feel like they're going in circles. That's why I always recommend, especially when you're first starting out on this journey, to choose just one. It's also the time where I highly suggest that you audit your environment. This is when you want to begin to rearrange your environment to reflect back to you who you're becoming, not who you've been, everything from the people you hang out with to the clothes that you wear, to the books that you read, to the places that you go. Create that supportive environment to allow you to reach your goals quicker, to decrease the friction that can slow you down.

Another simple thing that I would recommend during stage three is if you've had a really big setback and you're wanting to get your life together... This is so simple and yet so hard at the same time, but I'm telling you, if you do this for 30 days, it's going to change your life. For 30 days in a row, get up first thing in the morning and get moving. I want us to think about why this is so important. Number one, it signifies to the universe, "I am a woman in motion. I am going forward. I'm not staying stagnant. I'm not staying stuck." So that's really powerful in and of itself, but also I just know the tendency from going through this so many times, often what happens is we become sluggish and we start to feel terrible physically.

Most people, especially in stage two, aren't taking care of themselves that well. They're abandoning their self-care and they start to just feel heavy. They start to feel low energy. This is when we start getting our energy back. It can start happening in stage two. Emotionally, you start getting your energy back. But stage three, it's like this is when you start proving to yourself, "Not only am I a woman in motion, but I'm also a woman who takes care of herself." That can create so much confidence. It can create so much momentum. I'm telling you all for 30 days, do this, 30 minutes first thing in the morning, get moving, go for walks, go to the gym just for 30 minutes. It's powerful.

Now, in this stage, I want to go ahead and give you a highlight of most likely what's going to happen. You're going to experience imposter syndrome. Why? Because you are catching up with your new identity. I call this the awkward in between, and nothing has gone wrong here. It's part of the process, but you're going to have thoughts like, "Who am I to do this?" You're going to have this belief most likely that people are going to find you out. What are they going to find out? That you're changing? That you're not a woman that stays the same? But you're going to have all kinds of thoughts. When this is happening, the way I like to think of it's a battle between the old self and the new self. If you want the new self to win, you got to feed her, nurture her. Stop giving so much time and attention to the old self. Eventually, she's going to go away.

But I like to think of it, especially when it comes to self-image work, that this is when you get to practice it until you become it. But when imposter syndrome comes up, just know that this is normal. You're also going to be trying new things and hitting resistance, hitting obstacles. That's also very normal. You may also find yourself overthinking, over-analyzing, comparing your progress. Again, it's all very, very normal and this is when you need tools. Now, if you're in the membership, do you know what's going to be most supportive of you during stage three? The self-image studio process and coming to our monthly studio sessions, because this is all about how we create results 30 days at a time, and we address all of this, every single one.

It's why our members get such extraordinary results, because we keep the momentum by understanding change and by those regular touch points. It's just like I was talking about at the very beginning of the call with my team, having those quarterly touch points, you keep the momentum going. You don't get bogged down with the BS, you're able to clean it up quickly. Now, imagine doing that for your life every 30 days. That's what we do within the membership. So for you, you just want to continuously... It's almost like going back and forth between stage one where you're dissolving beliefs, and then stage two where, "Okay. Let me dream up of a new scenario. Let me dream up of what's possible," and then back into stage three where you're taking action on that.

But here's the thing with stage three, it's like The 5 AM Club. No one's clapping. You're probably exhausted, but you keep showing up and that's what creates momentum. You all, I am so convinced that I have created success just because I am stubborn and I'm persistent. Maybe it's the Capricorn in me. Also, I love what I do. My why is big, and I didn't even put that in here, but I think that's really important. You need to have a big why. Why do you want to go after this? Why is this so important to you? How is this going to make your life and the world a better place? How is this going to benefit your family? Whatever you need to discover to really dig deep into that compelling reason, it's important because if you don't have that big why, it's going to be so easy to give up and just go back to the old self, but when you have that big why... I think for me, I have truly fallen in love with the process and I think that's so important.

Most people fall in love with the outcome and then they're upset all of the time because the outcome's not yet. When you fall in love with this process, that's when you show up day after day. Even when you're not seeing results yet, even when it's hard, you just keep showing up because you know that this is just making you better. It's just making you stronger. It's just making you wiser, and that is worth all of it. So during stage two, this is when you are taking action. It's repetition, not perfection, and that is what builds your power. This stage is when you are embodying a new identity. It's not just action, it's action of coming from a new you, because remember, you started dissolving these beliefs that were holding you back in stage one. You started dreaming of a new way of being, of a new future, which to create something you've never had. You have to become someone you've never been.

So in stage two, you are taking action, as well as embodying a new identity before the world reflects it back. You are becoming her step-by-step, and you don't need to wait to feel ready. You just need to show up and embody this new energy, feel the discomfort of the awkward in between, and know that if you continue to hold onto this energy to embody it, to keep showing up, to providing evidence for her, eventually you are going to land in the last stage, which is stage four, which Martha calls the promised land.

This is when you're like, "Okay. You guys, I made my comeback, and not only have I made my comeback, I'm a whole new me." But the interesting part with this stage is there is a mantra that says things are changing, and that's okay because you don't stay and live in stage four. I think that's what we all hope for. That's what we envision. We want this perfect future where nothing ever changes and that's just not life. But again, when you understand this cycle and you have the tools, you know how to move through it with so much more elegance and grace, but things are going to change. You're going to be in stage two forever.

I think about in business, you can have great years and then things change and you're like, "Ooh my God, I have to reinvent my business. I have to reinvent myself." You can have the best job. You finally get that career and you're like, "Oh my God, this is great." Then the company decides it's going to shut down. You're like, "Oh, here we go again," right? Or it could be something as lovely as you're with your partner and all of a sudden you find out, "Oh my God, I'm pregnant. I wasn't planning that well back in stage two or stage one because now I'm having an identity crisis," right? Things are always changing, and that's okay. But in stage four, you have internalized a self-image. You're no longer trying, it's just who you are. But even here, change continues.

So when you're in stage four, what ends up happening is that there's a new calm, a new confidence. There's a new you. You're a new you on the other side of all of this. You notice that you have let go of old triggers and need for validation. There's this quiet pride in your own growth. So during this stage, this is where you really anchor new rituals, new routines. You might find yourself mentoring others or sharing your story. But here's what's really important in stage four, that you allow yourself to enjoy it, and that's when I know I have really internalized and have created a new identity. It's like I'm not afraid of going back. I'm not afraid of things falling apart. I'm not afraid of not holding on to what I've created because that usually means that you've created results from an old identity that's full of lack and fear.

It's when you really just relax and you celebrate and you enjoy, and you allow yourself to really feel the pride and all that you had to go through to get here. If you're not feeling that yet, it just means you're still in stage three. You're still in that awkward in between of dreaming and creating and literally creating a new version of you that maybe you don't quite believe in yet, doesn't feel completely integrated yet, and that's okay. That takes time, especially if it's something that you have struggled with for a long time, so it means you have a lot of evidence for the old self. It just means you need to create more evidence for the new self. That's all that means. But you'll know you are in stage four when you just relax and enjoy and embrace all that you've created, and also knowing that change is going to come again. As I was saying, it's just a part of life. But when that change comes, it'll come to a woman who is different, who knows how to handle it differently because of everything that you went through during this cycle.

So during stage four, your self-image is no longer aspirational. It's embodied. It's normal. It's integrated. It's just who you are. This is where you live in alignment without all of the hustle. Now, a question I often get asked is like, "How long does this take?" There is no timeline to your comeback. I have had comebacks that have taken me two to three years. I've had some comebacks that have taken me less than a month. There is no timeline, but what I have noticed is that the more times I've gone through this cycle and the more I've grown and the more my self-image has changed, usually the quicker I can go through this cycle, but when I was just learning it, man, like I said, three years.

When I had bulimia, that was a tough one. I lived in this for a bit and it made me so strong. It made me so self-compassionate. There were so many good things that came out of that. So don't pressure yourself to get through this during a certain timeline. I love to say there is no hurry because when I tell myself that, things usually speed up. It means I'm not pressuring. I'm not resisting. I'm just allowing myself to grow, to learn, to experiment without the pressure. Again, that's when things can really speed up.

So, I want to give you a comeback challenge because your setback is not the end of your story. It's the beginning of your next era. So based on everything that I just shared, I want you to think about what square you are in right now. Are you in stage one where you feel like you're going through a death and rebirth? Are you in stage two where you're beginning to dream and scheme and visualize different futures, different ways of being? Are you in stage three where you are in it, you're felling, you are failing, you are hitting up against obstacles and resistance? Or are you in stage four where you feel like, "You know what, I've arrived and I want to enjoy this. I want to relax around this?"

Then what's one mantra that you'll carry with you this week that really supports you during the stage that you're in? Then finally, what are three small actions that you'll take to set the stage for your comeback? You've got this. Again, this isn't the end. This is just a new beginning, my friends. Have a beautiful, beautiful week, and I cannot wait to see you in next week's episode. Cheers.

Hey, before you go, I have a little gift for you that pairs beautifully with the work that we do around here. It's called The Calm Ritual. It is a short, powerful meditation to help you return to your center, quiet the noise and reconnect with you, because that's where your power lies. Real self-image work doesn't start in the mirror. It starts in the stillness. It starts with calm. So you can go to schoolofselfimage.com/becalm and begin shaping your self-image from the inside out. I'll see you next time.

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You’re Invited To Live An Extraordinary Life!

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Listen to the Full Episode:Mid-Year Reset: Strategies to Transform Your Life in Six Months

To create your best six months ever, it is essential to start by defining what "best" means for you personally. This involves taking the time to reflect on your desires, aspirations, and what success means to you in your life. Tonya Leigh emphasizes that many people fail to define success clearly, which can lead to feelings of dissatisfaction and confusion. By asking yourself, "If I woke up six months from now and said this was my best season yet, what would have made it so?" you can gain clarity on the specific outcomes and experiences you want to achieve.

Tonya reflects on the halfway point of 2025 and encourages listeners to evaluate their feelings about the year so far. She shares her personal experience of needing a reset after feeling off track and discusses the importance of shifting one’s perspective to create the best next six months.

Tune in for insights on becoming more of your authentic self and setting the stage for an empowered second half of the year.

Episode Details:00:34 - Mid-Year Reflection: How Are You Feeling?

03:21 - The Importance of Becoming an Energetic Match

06:10 - General Tips for the Next Six Months

08:07 - Tonya's Social Media Breakthrough

13:05 - Stepping into a New Role

17:27 - Stop Giving CPR to Your Past

20:31 - Rehearsing Your Future

24:47 - Deciding to Have Your Best Six Months Ever

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Click HERE to subscribe to our YouTube channel DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:What if you decided, I mean, really decided that the next six months we're going to be your best ever? Not because you hustle harder, but because you shift how you see yourself, what you expect, and how you show up. This isn't about just doing more. It's about becoming more of you, and that's what we're talking about on today's episode, so let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello, hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Can you believe it is already halfway through 2025? It's so hard to believe. I feel like we just started and it's January and yet, we are already halfway through the year. It's crazy how time is flying. And I genuinely want to know how are you feeling about the first part of the year Are you excited about the results? Are you excited about where you're going or are you feeling a little bit discouraged? Maybe you're feeling a little bit behind, feeling like you need a reset. Well, if the latter feels more like you, you're not alone. I had to do a reset last month. Something was off. This ever happen to you? I just felt like my energy was off. I was maybe heading in a direction I didn't want to go, and so I just stopped and I asked myself, "If you were to commit to making the next six months your best ever, what would have to change?"

And so that actually inspired not only today's episode, but it also inspired the focus of the School of Self-Image membership for the month of June, which is a mid-year reset. I'm going to be running members through the exact process that I went through and I did it a month ago and I can already feel and see the results of doing this work because here's what often happens, and just see if this feels true to you. It feels like the new year is a promise of what's to come. It feels like a blank canvas, even though if you think about it, it's just any other day. But we give it so much weight of like, "Oh, my God, it's a new year, new you, new start." And so we begin with usually some excitement. Coming off the holidays, it's the new year, it's like, "Oh, I'm going to achieve this. This is my focus for the year. This is what I'm excited about. I'm ready to start fresh."

And that energy typically lasts less than a month. And then we start hitting up against the obstacles because when you are creating, when you are growing, especially when you have big goals, you are going to have obstacles. I've never met anyone who had big goals that just seamlessly and effortlessly achieve them. If that were the case, so many of us would go after and achieve big goals, but it's not. There are going to be obstacles. And so what ends up usually happening is you start hitting up against those obstacles and you start being discouraged and you start cheating on your goals a little bit. Maybe you think, "Oh, this isn't the goal for me. I need to choose a different goal." Or you just give up on your goals altogether and you just wrap it up in the context of "this is just my life. Nothing's going to change. This is just how it is." And I am a big believer, and that is why the majority of people don't reach their goals. They give up too soon.

And number two, they focus on the action. They don't focus on who do I need to become to actually achieve that goal? Because that's the real secret. The real secret is you being an energetic match for what it is you want, to be aligned with what you want, because if you don't, you're just always fighting against yourself. So as I was saying, I was feeling off about a month ago. And it really became clear that I wasn't really excited about the first part of my year and the way it had gone. I had made some hires that didn't work out. I've had to fire people. It was just one of those tough beginnings of a year. And so I realized for me, I needed a reset. I needed to take a step back, re-examine, re-decide, re-commit, and more importantly, I needed to look at, and it's probably what you need to look at as well, I needed to look at my energy. I really needed to think about where I want to go and how I need to change to get there.

Now, I'm not talking about action. Action is secondary. I'm talking about who I've got to become. I'm talking about the energetic shifts. I'm talking about the expansion. I'm talking about creating capacity to hold more, and that's some deep, deep work, and that's what we're going to be working on within the membership this month. In fact, we have opened the doors. If you feel like you need a mid-year reset, this is the month to join. We are going to be resetting. We are going to re-decide. We are going to re-commit. And we are going to get super clear on the self-image that you need to step into to guarantee that the next six months are your best ever. So if this is something you feel like you need right now, if you're not happy with how the last six months went and you do not want to continue in the patterns, you don't want to continue in this feeling state that you're in and you are ready for some things to shift, come and join us. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/join and let's do a mid-year reset together.

Now, I want to give you some general tips and ideas as to how to make your next six months your best ever. But as I was saying, this is about so much more than just setting some goals and saying, "I'm going to go for it." This is some deep work and this is what we're going to be doing in the membership. When I did this a month ago, I uncovered stuff that it became so clear to me as to why I had struggled the first six months of the year or the first five months when I did it. I was like, "Oh." Once you see it, you can unsee it. And so much has shifted in just a short amount of time. This is why energy is so important. We can accomplish so much more in so much less time than we realize when we focus on energy. And we're going to be talking about that in the membership this month. We're going to be talking about collapsing time. And I really feel like I did that this month.

Let me give you an example. First of all, I have had probably 10 members reach out to me and say, "what's going on with you? Your energy is so different." They were on a couple of calls that I did, and they were like, "We can just sense things are changing." So the world is feeling it because it's shifted within me. So that's just one little example, but here's something fun that happened this month that I wasn't expecting, but it was a result of doing this work. So here's what happened. I had hired a social media manager because I have been running the story for the longest time that I don't really like social media and I'm too busy for it. So my genius idea was, well, let me hire someone to do it for me.

And turns out that was not the best move. It became very clear early on that this was not going to work out because when people try to speak on my behalf, it never feels like me. And so I'll go onto my own social media and be like, "Oh, don't like that. That's not what I would've said. That's not how I would've said it." And I was trying to train her, but I realized I'm like, "Listen, Tanya, you need to put your big girl panties on and you need to step into this role and you need to stop having such split energy around it because part of me was telling myself that I don't want to be on social media. I don't want to publicize everything. And it was almost, if I just call it out, it was like this air of superiority of "I'm too good for social media," which usually my brain goes to, "I'm not good enough", but for this, it was like, "Oh, I'm too good to be on social media." I know. It's ridiculous because I'm not at all.

It was just my brain's way of trying to justify me not doing it. And then you add on, "Oh, you're too busy." Again, just another justification to make me feel good about my decision to not spend a lot of time on social media. When I did this work, however, I discovered that's not at all what it's about. What it was really about was me playing small, me hiding, me not being visible. And guess what? The last time I checked, it's really hard to spread your work. It's really hard to connect with more and more amazing women when you're over here hiding and then you're dressing it up in an excuse of, "Oh, I'm just too busy" or "I'm too good for that." No, you're just a little wimp. You're just hiding. That's what I had to tell myself.

And so talk about an energetic shift. As soon as I let her go, I was like, "Okay, we are done with this. We are so done with it, Tonya Leigh. You're stepping into this role and you're going to step into it like you've never stepped into it before. You're going to figure out how to do it in a way that you enjoy. You're going to get over whatever subconscious fears you have that are holding you back and you are going to just take yourself to the next level." It really came down to a decision. So it was probably two days after I let her go and I had done this work. I was in the car driving to my parents' house. Actually, Fonz was driving. I was in the passenger seat doing some work, and I was like, "Okay, it's time. It's time that you really own this part of your business and your life." Because the truth is, you all, I love social media. I really do. I love going on there and connecting with women, learning from them, being inspired by them. I enjoy it.

So to tell myself I don't enjoy it is a lie. Now, I don't like it when it takes over my life, but with everything, you get to decide how you do it. And so getting back to my story, I'm in the car and I just thought to myself, "What would be something fun to post right now?" And the other thing I didn't tell you, I left this part out, but the other thing with social media is in my brain has always been so complex and this is what the brain does. And listen, I've been teaching this stuff for years. It still happens to me. This is what the brain does. It tries to convince you of how complex, how hard, how difficult something is. When in reality, it's not that difficult. It's just you sharing from your heart. Stop trying to be perfect. Stop trying to impress. Just share what's true for you.

And so I opened up my phone and I found this clip of me walking out my door and I had on my headphones and my running shoes. I was going out for a walk and Fonz had filmed it. And so I was like, "Well, let me use this." And I thought to myself, "What would be fun to post about?" And so I got this idea. The caption is "If I woke up tomorrow and decided to reinvent myself, here's what I would do" and listed 27 things that I would do. Didn't think anything of this post. I put some cool music with it and I posted, and as I'm riding to my parents' house, I keep looking because I like to interact. When people comment, I like to interact, and all of a sudden, comment after comment, like after like. It just starts blowing up and I'm like, "Oh my God, this is crazy. This has never happened to me." I've never gone viral that way. And to make a long story, hopefully a little shorter, that one post led to me getting 20,000 new followers.

Now, keep in mind, I don't think I grew 20,000 followers all of last year, the entire year. I kept saying, "We need to grow my account." Didn't grow past that. I did it in two weeks because that post, the algorithm's still picking it up and putting it in front of people. And I was like, "Oh, my God." That is an example of an energetic shift, an energetic shift of, "Okay, this is what I'm stepping into. I'm just going to stop being this and I'm going to start being that." And that's the kind of energy I want you all to be thinking about as you're thinking about how to create your best six months ever. It's not going to be more action that's going to get you there. It is going to be a complete energetic expansion. It's going to be you deciding to step into a whole new role.

In fact, within the membership this month, I'm calling it the summer of reinvention, the next month's topic, I think July is going to be so good. I can't tell you what it is yet, but it's going to be so good. But it's around the same idea of you stepping into a new character, into a new you. And it really does come down to just one decision. And usually, those decisions come after you just getting fed up with yourself. Truly. You're like, "I can see how I'm holding myself back. I'm so tired of breaking promises to myself. I'm so tired of putting up with other people's BS. I'm so tired of not having boundaries and being a people pleaser. I'm so tired of playing small. I'm so tired of being broke." Whatever it is, you just get tired and you own it. You decide this is on me and stop blaming everybody else because that's what our brain wants to do because it makes it feel a little better, a little bit more palatable.

But the moment you're like, "No. I've created this and I'm ready to create something else and I am ready to step into the version who can create that for herself," that's when your life becomes magical. So it's time to actually get into some tips. I feel like I've given you some things to think about, but I want to give you some specific tips of how to have your best six months ever. Number one, decide what best means for you, because most people never define success. They just know they feel like crap. They know they're not happy. They know they're not fulfilled and they want to feel better, but they don't take the time to define what does that even look like for me? Ask yourself, "If I woke up six months from now and said, 'This was my best season yet,' what would have made it so?" This is the clarity that your brain craves to build a new reality.

If you don't tell your brain what to create, it is going to be confused. It's just like my social media example. I had never told my brain, "Hey, listen, let's get on board. This is what we're doing." I was living in, "Oh, I don't really want to do this and I'm going to hire someone else and hopefully they'll figure it out for me and this is too hard, this is too confusing." And so the brain's like, "All right, that's what you're asking for. It's what we'll give you."

But the moment I told my brain, "Hey, listen, you and me, we're going to be our own social media manager. We're going to have fun with this. We're going to figure out a process and a system so it doesn't take over your life. You're going to stop trying to get it perfect. You're just going to share. You're going to share what you feel like sharing. You are going to connect, you are going to have fun." Then my brain was like, "Oh, okay. That's what we're doing. That's what's up. All right." And then the brain gets on board with you. So you need to define what best looks and feels like for you.

And then as I was saying, and I'll just mention it again, you need to think about your self-image. This is the part that most people leave out and it's why creating is so difficult. You cannot out perform your self-image. Okay, so let's go back to my example that I just gave you. If my self-image is of a woman who doesn't like social media, who struggles with social media, and those are subconscious beliefs, every time I go to post, I'm going to feel probably a lot of frustration, a lot of doubt, a lot of maybe imposter syndrome. I'm going to be feeling all of those things deep down because I'm trying to take an action outside of how I see myself. But the moment I decide my self-image is going to be that of a woman who crushes social media, who understands social media, who enjoys social media, and then I start showing up every day to provide evidence for that, all of a sudden now I'm operating within a self-image that supports what it is that I want.

You have to elevate your energetic set point before you take action. That's why two days before I posted, I really was pumping myself up. I'm like, "Listen, this is what we're doing. This is who you are now. This is who you are now, so let's start showing up as her." So you need to get clear. Once you've defined what best looks like for you, you need to define, "Okay, now who do I need to become to create that best six months ever?" So that's the second point.

The third one is stop giving CPR to your past. Okay? I don't care how the last six months have been. I mean, that's not true. If you've had a hard time, of course I care, but I don't care in the sense of it doesn't define what the next six months can be. And we can sit around and we can talk about why you had a bad six months. We can talk about all of the things that went wrong. We can sit around and massage your problems, but that is not going to help you create your best six months ever. It's like learn the lesson, thank the last six months for teaching you those lessons, and now what? Let's reset. Let's redefine, let's recommit. I was around someone the other day and every time I'm around her, all she wants to do is talk about her past and her problems as if that's going to be what gets her out of it.

Now, there is a time in our lives where we need to do that. When we've been through trauma, when we are processing grief, that's a different situation. Those are times that warrant us sitting around and really giving ourselves the grace and the space to process. But for a lot of people, it just becomes a habit. A habit of just sitting around and talking about your problems. And remember what you focus on grows, so if you sit around and talk about your problems, guess what's growing in your experience? Your problems, because that's all you're seeing. That's all you're experiencing because you are indulging in them.

Start talking about your future, start talking about possibilities. Start talking about where you're going, what you're excited about, what you're grateful for, and you will find that your next six months are going to explode with possibility, with experiences, with opportunities, but you have to stop giving CPR to your past. So the last six months they're done. It only exists now in your head. The last six months is just a story in your head now. Do you want to sit around and keep talking about how bad it's been or do you want to thank it, figure out what it taught you and let's move on to creating your next six months?

The other thing I want you to think about is the concept of collapsing time. Now you collapse time through decision and embodiment. I want you to ask yourself this question, if you had to achieve something in the next six months that maybe your brain has convinced you is going to take you a year, maybe even two years, but if you had to do it in the next six months, what would have to change? How would you have to change? It's such a fun question, and this is something we're going to be talking about a lot in the membership. There are ways to collapse time and achieve things in so much less time than you realize, but it comes down to your being-ness, not necessarily the actions that you're taking. When you expand your self-image, you immediately expand what's possible for you. When you expand your self-image, you are expanding your capacity, you are expanding your decision making process, you're expanding the opportunities that are available to you, and when you do that, then you're able to collapse time and actually create so much more in so much less time.

The other thing is you need to rehearse your future. One of the things that I have been doing on repeat, more now than I ever have in my whole personal development journey, is visualization. Really visualizing, rehearsing her, feeling her, way before I'm in the actual future that I'm rehearsing. Because the future doesn't exist just like the past doesn't exist. All that ever exists is right now, and so by rehearsing the future me that I'm stepping into, I'm bringing that energy, that presence, that essence into the now, and it is that energy and essence that informs how I show up, what I say yes to, what I say no to, what I'm available for, what I'm unavailable for. Life is always happening right now in this moment. Who are you being in this moment and is it a match for who you say you want to be? Is it a match for what you say you want? If not, bring it back to this moment. Visualize her, feel her. I want you to flood your brain with images of success.

I often joke that I brainwashed myself into success. Seriously. Even way back in the day when I was a single mama working as a critical care nurse, I remember just flooding my brain with images of me getting fit, of me being different, of me living in different places, of me traveling, of me doing all of the things that I'm doing now. I wasn't back then, but I flooded my brain with those images. I remember I used to do this thing, because I spent a lot of time in the car driving to and from work and I would have interviews. I would talk to myself. I'd pretend someone was interviewing me. And I would answer the interview questions as if I were being interviewed by Oprah. I was telling my brain what to create. I was telling my brain, "Hey, this is where we're going." Even though I was so far from being her. I was so far from that place.

And I didn't even have the lingo for it then, I just knew it felt good to give myself permission to dream that way. It felt good to see a different possibility for me. It felt good to put myself in that energy of what was possible, even though it was just me talking to myself in the car. This is called neuro sculpting. It's not just woo woo stuff. It is scientifically based. And so I want you to begin to feel what it would feel like to be where you want to be and then start speaking like her, walking like her, dressing like her, making decisions like her, going to places that you think she would go.

I remember going to luxury hotels to work. I couldn't afford them at the time, but I knew my future self could and she would be hanging out there. So I would go sit in the lobby and just surround myself with that energy, that energy of abundance, that energy of a future that I hoped to create one day. And I am telling you all, that works. Energy is everything. I was placing myself in an environment that mirrored back to me how I wanted to think and feel about myself and what I wanted to experience. And so rehearse your future until she feels so familiar and then until your environment is reflecting her back to you.

The last thing that I want you to do to make this your best six months ever is just decide that it will be. Make that decision right now. The next six months are going to be my best six months ever. Tell yourself that every single day up until December 31st, the best six months ever, because what you're doing is you're telling your reticular activating system, that part of your brain that filters through all of the data, all of the inputs, you're telling it what to deliver to you. And this is why we need to think on purpose. This is why we need to be intentional about where we let our attention go, what we allow into our minds, because that is creating our experience.

And so when you tell your brain, "Hey, listen, first of all, this is what the best six months looks like for me, and I've already decided that this will be my best six months ever," you are telling your brain what to go out there and create for you. You're telling it what to look for, you're telling it what to notice, you're telling it the evidence to provide to you. And when you start looking for good things, you're going to see them everywhere. When you start looking for things to be grateful for, when you start looking for how you have always and always will be good enough, when you start looking for opportunities, when you start looking for reasons why you are such an incredible human being, your brain will start delivering that to you. So just decide. Let's all decide right now we are about to create our best six months ever.

And if you want to dive deeper into this work, if you want me to lead you through my process, come join us within the School of Self-Image for this month. You can go to www.schoolofselfimage.com/join, and I cannot wait to see you inside. As I said earlier, I'm calling this our season of reinvention. So we're going to have some fun this month and the months to come. So come and join us. All right, my friends, have a beautiful rest of your week and I will see you on next week's episode. Cheers.

Hey, are you ready to transform your self-image but lack direction and support? If so, I'd like to invite you to join the School of Self-Image. This is an exclusive monthly membership where you'll create your own powerful before and after story. Through weekly classes and coaching, you'll learn powerful techniques on how to elevate the quality of your mindset, style, and surroundings to change how you see yourself and create extraordinary results in your life. Head over to www.schoolofselfimage.com/join to learn more.

Enjoy the Show? Don't miss another episode!Pick your favorite platform below:The Self-Image Manifesto

You’re Invited To Live An Extraordinary Life!

grab the self-image manifestoThe post How to Make the Next Six Months Your Best Yet appeared first on School of Self-Image.

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I was told that when menopause hit – and the big 5-0 rolled around – everything would start to go downhill.

Less energy.
More weight.
Mood swings.
Brain fog.
A future that looked… underwhelming.

But here I am, nearing that fabulous milestone,
and I feel better than I did in my thirties.

I have more energy.More passion.
More excitement about what’s ahead.

No, it didn’t happen by accident.
And it definitely didn’t happen because I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.

It happened because I got intentional.
I made small, daily shifts that – over time – completely changed how I feel in my body and how I show up for my life.

Yes, it took discipline.
But not the kind that feels like punishment.
The kind that feels like devotion.

And in this week’s podcast episode, I’m sharing 5 Little Details That Have Upleveled My Health & Well-Being. Click here to listen now.

These are the small things I’ve been doing consistently that have created big results – from my skin to my sleep to my spirit.

Because feeling vibrant isn’t about doing more – it’s about doing what actually matters, and doing it with love.

Make sure you’re subscribed, because this is one of those episodes you’ll want to come back to again and again.

With vitality & love,

The Devotion Behind Vibrant LivingHappiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present.

~ Jim Rohn

True vitality isn’t found in grand gestures or complete lifestyle overhauls. It’s cultivated in those quiet moments of choice. Choosing nourishment over convenience. Movement over stillness. Presence over distraction.

These aren’t sacrifices; they’re investments in a life that feels as vibrant as it looks. The most profound transformations happen when self-discipline transforms into self-devotion.

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It’s become part of my Sunday reset ritual – a small act of devotion that signals to my body and mind: this week, we’re choosing vibrance.

Purchase the Lotion5 Little Details That Have Upleveled My Health & Well-BeingReady for the juicy details? In this week’s podcast, I’m spilling five of my most closely guarded vitality secrets – the tiny tweaks that have completely transformed how I feel in my body.

These might not be your typical wellness prescriptions, but they’re the sophisticated little rituals that elegantly bridge the gap between effort and ease. Because true vitality isn’t about punishment disguised as discipline – it’s about devotion to what actually works.

Listen in for the practices that have me feeling more vibrant at (almost) 50 than I did at 35. Who said the best years are behind us?

Listen to the Podcast// TheEDIT

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Listen to the Full Episode:Little Details, Big Impact: How Small Changes Can Transform Your Life

Establishing a morning routine incorporating intentional practices, such as breath work and connecting with nature, can significantly enhance your day and help you break free from habitual patterns. In a recent podcast episode, the host shares her personal journey of transforming her mornings to create a more intentional and fulfilling start to the day.

Host, Tonya Leigh, shares her experience of breaking free from habitual comfort by replacing a reactive coffee routine with a rejuvenating "sunrise ceremony." This practice involves sitting outside, soaking in the morning sun, and engaging in breathwork for five minutes. Tonya emphasizes how this simple yet powerful ritual helps reset their nervous system and sets a positive tone for the day.

Tune in to discover how to enhance your mornings and cultivate a deeper connection with yourself and the world around you.

Episode Details:00:18 - Breaking Morning Habits

00:31 - Sunrise Ceremony

03:09 - Introducing the Glowtini

05:58 - Strut and Sculpt Routine

09:01 - Benefits of Pilates

12:11 - Collagen in Coffee

13:05 - Effects of Protein and Healthy Fats

15:04 - Importance of Intentional Thoughts

20:22 - Assessing Life Details

23:43 - The Calm Ritual

Useful Resources: Click HERE for The Calm Ritual * Click HERE to join the Membership * Click HERE for a FREE download * Click HERE* to sign up for our weekly newsletter, The Edit

Connect with Master Life Coach Tonya Leigh:

Click HERE to follow our Instagram
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Click HERE to visit our Facebook group
Click HERE to follow our TikTok
Click HERE to subscribe to our YouTube channel DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:Your life today is a collection of all of the details, the details of your thinking, the details of your environment, the details of your actions. It's the little details that add up to create your experience of life. So in this episode, I am sharing five details that have elevated my health and wellbeing in hopes that maybe you don't start doing exactly what I'm doing, but you'll begin to think about the little details. And are they speaking to you, the self-image of how you want to see yourself? Are they elevating your life or are they detracting and shrinking your life? So let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, Master Life Coach, Tonya Leigh.

What is happening, my friends? Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. And this week we are going to have some fun, and I'm just going to share some little details that have really helped to elevate my own health and wellbeing, because this is a question that I get asked about a lot like, what are you doing? How are you eating? What's going on with you? Because you look as if you are glowing. It looks as if you are feeling better than ever. And I must admit, I am. I'm feeling so good physically, and it really does come down to the details of how I live my day. One of the things that I teach within the membership is that it's the little details that in the moment don't really have such a huge impact on your life, but over time, these details are what's creating your life.

Everything from lighting a candle to putting on a little spritz of perfume to some of the things I'm going to share with you today. Those little things impact how you see yourself. They impact your self-image. And as you're going to see in today's episode, they also are impacting your cellular energy, they're impacting how you feel physically. And these little details over time make a huge impact on your overall quality of life. So I thought it would be fun for me to share some of the things that I've been doing because I have been switching it up a little bit. I'm always playing with my routines. I'm always experimenting to see what works, because what worked in one season may not work in this season. We're always growing, evolving, and I'm just going to share what's working for me right now.

Five little details that are elevating my health and well-being. And we're going to start with detail number one, and I call this my sunrise ceremony. So what I used to do was I would wake up and like a robot, go straight to my kitchen and make my first cup of coffee. I'm one of those people I go to bed at night being excited about my first cup of coffee the next day. Can anyone relate to that? It's like you're already imagining the smell of the coffee beans, the taste of that first sip. It's so good that the best way to spend the first hour of your morning? And the answer was no. It was habitual. It was me giving into comfort. And so what I've been doing recently that I've really enjoyed, even though in the beginning it was hard to do because my brain wanted to take me straight to the coffee machine, I've been waking up and going outside for what I call my sunrise ceremony. Right now in Charlotte, it's so beautiful. The weather in the morning is glorious, the sun's out, and I want to connect with nature. I want to connect with the sun. So basically what this looks like, I do this in my robe actually. I go and sit on my back porch and I just stare up at the sun. Well, I have my eyes closed, but I put my face towards the sun and I just take some really good deep breaths.

I do a round of breath work that I've been practicing and it takes me five minutes, but it's just a way for me to set the tone of my day. It helps me reset my nervous system. It helps me to get into a state of being intentional versus reactive, because I feel like my coffee routine was just me reacting to my own habitual way of being. And some people wake up and they grab their phones, they immediately start reacting to the world. Me, going outside and just sitting in the sun and doing some rounds of breath work for about five minutes has literally set me up for successful days. It doesn't seem like a lot, but it's a couple of things. It's me interrupting an old pattern and it's me connecting with myself, connecting with the sun, the earth, nature before I get into my day, and it's actually really, really powerful.

So that is detail number one, my sunrise ceremony. Immediately, first thing, heading outside, looking up into the sun and rounds of breath work for five minutes. It's very cleansing. It's very relaxing. And more than anything, it just lets me know you are alive, you are here. You are here to experience and create this day. Go do it, Tonya. Do it with love. Do it with intention. Do it with so much passion. Don't take this for granted. And then we're going to move into detail number two. So at this point, my brain is wanting coffee. I am a coffee lover and probably will never change. I enjoy coffee. But I also realize putting coffee into your body first thing in the morning is not the healthiest. It's very acidic. And so I was like, before we start with that first cup of coffee, we're going to infuse our bodies with something else.

And I call this my Glowtini, and it's basically elevated water. So what I do is I have a mason jar. I know, it's the Southern in me, but I have this huge mason jar. I can't remember how many ounces are in it. I'll have to look into it and see, but it's definitely more than eight ounces, probably more like 16. And I fill it with filtered water. And then I do a concoction of amino acids, which is the building block for protein. So it's very important. I do a scoop of creatine and I also do a scoop of electrolytes. And before I have my first cup of coffee, I infuse my body with this Glowtini. People have been telling me recently, "Your skin looks so good, what is it?" And I could attribute it to many things because, I mean, from my skincare to my supplements, but I do think this Glowtini concoction has a big part to do with it.

Number one, it's hydrating. So many people are walking around dehydrated. We are drinking acidic drinks, we are eating acidic foods, and we're not getting enough water. We're not getting enough hydration. So I think just that will help plump up the skin. But I also think there's something to be said for the creatine, which is not only great for cognition, but it's also great for muscle and for skin, as well as the amino acids. And then electrolytes. I feel like many of us are deficient in some of the very core and key electrolytes that we need. And so that is the second detail that has really helped me to have more energy and to feel better. And if you think about both of the things that I just shared with you, they are little details. It's not like this big thing that takes hours.

We're talking about five to 10 minutes of sitting out in the sun and doing some intentional breath work and then filling a glass with water and putting three scoops of supplements into the water. It doesn't take much time. It's crazy when you think about it, how often we don't do these things and they're so minuscule, they don't take time. What really happens is we're having to break out of habits that we're so accustomed to, and that's the uncomfortable part. But the actual process of filling up a mason jar full of water and putting some scoops of supplements in them, it's not that hard. It's just a little detail. But those details can have such a big impact on your life. So that's number two, my Glowtini. Number three, I'm calling this my Strut and Sculpt. So two of the things that I have been doing religiously is walking every day and Pilates. Almost every day, not quite every day, Pilates. I've been supplementing going to the gym as well, but for the most part, Strut and Sculpt.

And this takes about an hour to 90 minutes. Depending on my schedule, depending on the day, a minimum of one hour up to 90 minutes. I might cut my walk shorter so I can do more Pilates. I might walk more and then supplement with maybe 20 minutes of Pilates after my walk. I'm not so strict that I don't give myself some freedom to choose how I want to use the Strut and Sculpt hour to 90 minutes. But that's been really good. First of all, during my walk, I can listen to podcasts. I can listen sometimes to my own visualizations that I've created that are inside the School of Self-Image membership. It is just depending on what I need. Maybe there's something in business that I'm trying to figure out so I can put on a great business podcast. Or maybe it's something that I'm struggling with and I just need to settle my nervous system, so I'll go and listen to one of my visualizations.

Maybe I'm wanting to just listen to music because I don't want to plug into anything and I just want to be with me. Sometimes it's silent. Sometimes it's with Vons. He and I will go out for a walk and just talk about our days, talk about what's going on for us. Sometimes it's by myself with nothing. I give myself the liberty of deciding, what do I need on this walk? Do I need to learn something? Do I need to release something? Do I need to talk about something? And so the walk itself is flexible in how I do it, but the walk has been consistent. And that's been so good for me, because this was something I'd been trying to do for a while, just have a consistent walking practice. And I don't know why it was so difficult.

I had all these excuses, I need to do this. I'm too busy to go for a walk. I'll do it tomorrow, just like I know we all do. And I finally got fed up with myself. I'm like, listen, you're not getting any younger. Your body needs movement now more than ever. Don't take your health for granted. Just because you feel okay, don't think that this is going to last forever without some intention and effort. And so I've been getting myself out, usually first thing in the morning to go for a walk, followed up with a Pilates session. I bought a Reformer a few months ago and I have absolutely loved it. It's upstairs. I sometimes watch classes. I've subscribed to two online Pilates class websites. And then sometimes I just do my own thing. I do my own series that I have learned and enjoy.

But Pilates is so good, you all. Oh my God. And you don't even need a Reformer. You can do mat Pilates, but it is so good in many ways. It's good for stretching. It's good for lengthening. It's good for toning. It's like a body stabilizing workout that my body personally appreciates so much. And so that's detail number three. It is a detail. It's just a detail of just going for a walk and then, to simplify it even more, it could just be a walk and a stretch, a walk and a little strengthening. But combining those two have really helped me to have more energy. I feel the best I've felt in a long time. So that's number three. Number four is the one that, just like with my walking, has been a struggle. And I just decided I was no longer going to struggle with it. It's not a struggle when you take the drama out of it and you just ask yourself, okay, what do I need to do to hit this goal?

And so my goal is to consume a minimum of 80 grams of protein, but ideally 80 grams. And you can see I've given myself the grace of 20 grams because I was realizing, number one, I'm the kind of person when I'm busy, when I'm working a lot, I won't eat until later in the day. It'll be like 1:00 or 2:00, I'm like, God, I need to eat something. And so I realized that's not healthy. I feel like my body needs more support nutritionally than that. And then when I was eating, it was eating healthy, but it would be a salad or I went through a period where I was having some oatmeal in the morning, and so I wasn't getting the protein that I needed. And I listened to a couple of podcasts that just reaffirmed what I knew. And that is that we need protein. Especially as we get older, one of the first things to go is our muscle and muscle is built from protein. And so I made it a goal.

I'm like, listen, get your minimum of 80 grams of protein every single day. Just do what you need to do. So what that looks like for me is that every time I visit my mom, she gives me some of her eggs. She has chickens now, so I get fresh eggs. So I will eat sometimes four eggs a day. I love to make my eggs in a little bit of butter in the skillet. I like them a little bit runny, so over medium. And I will toast a couple pieces of bread, put a little butter on those, and just put the eggs over that. It's so good. I've been doing fish, some chicken, some beef. I also enjoy cottage cheese, but my cottage cheese, I love to take it and put a little drizzle of olive oil, it is so good, you all, a little squeeze of lemon, some salt and pepper. And sometimes that'll be my breakfast. It's so simple, so easy, and it's packed with protein.

I also add a scoop of collagen to my coffee. I've elevated my coffee a little bit. I used to do this regularly and I'd gotten out of the habit of it simply because, and this is a really important reminder, when your environment is not set up to support the habits that you want to have, it makes it so much harder. And so I had my collagen stuck in a cabinet somewhere, and the reality is, if it's sitting out beside my coffee maker, I will remember to put it in there. And so just that one little tweak of moving my collagen and putting it by my coffee maker was this reminder of, hey, listen, just put a scoop in there as you are making your coffee. It's so easy, a little detail. And so that is another way that I get my protein in every single day.

Now, one of the things that I've noticed from being very diligent in making sure I'm getting enough protein is that I am not hungry. And it's not just protein. I'm not afraid of fat. I eat olive oil. I eat butter. I eat avocados. And so protein and the healthy fats that I eat, I just find that I'm sated for longer. I don't have the desire to munch and to snack. And so that's just a positive benefit of making an effort to get this protein in every single day. The final detail that has made such a huge impact, not only on my health and wellbeing, but my overall life is my curated day practice. So within the School of Self-Image membership, we have our daily journal called the Curated Day. I'm looking at mine right now. We just had them printed and they are available to members. They're so beautiful.

But I get so much clarity, I get so much intentionality, I get so much expansion from sitting down every single morning for sometimes 10 minutes max. It doesn't have to take that long. But getting myself into a state that is going to have a positive impact on my day. What often happens is that we wake up just letting our brain run on default. What are your first thoughts of the day? Are they positive? Are they expansive? Do they set you up for success? Because the reality is your thoughts are shaping your entire experience. And so many people don't stop and think about, what am I even thinking? Some people don't even realize that what they're thinking is just a thought. They think it's real, and they're reacting to it all day, every day, recreating the same experience that they don't want to be in.

And so by sitting down every single morning with my Curated Day Journal, I am proving to myself that I am a woman who curates her day on purpose, starting with my current thoughts, why they're there in the first place, getting very intentional about who I want to be for the day, what's important for me to accomplish for the day, how I want to feel for the day, getting connected to my future self, celebrating my wins, celebrating my progress. I mean, you can see how this would have such a positive impact on your life. And it's so simple to do. It's just a little detail, but so many of you don't do it. So many of you keep putting these little details that would completely change your life on the back burner, all because you're stuck in habitual ways of being, you are continuing habits and patterns that are keeping you stuck in a self-image that keeps perpetuating the results that you don't want.

I have to clean up my own self-image every single day. Every day, I have sneaky thoughts that want to pop into my head that say, "This is too hard. You can't do this. Who do you think you are? You shouldn't have done it this way. You should have done it that way." Lots of shoulds in my head, and that just does not serve me. But if I don't check it, if I just let it run out of control in my mind, you can see how I could potentially get way off track from my vision, from the life that I want to live, from the legacy that I want to leave. I cannot emphasize this enough. It's such a tiny detail to sit down with a journal and check in with yourself. How are you feeling? How are you doing? Why are you feeling that way? That is the pattern interrupt that will change your life.

When you're like, "Oh, this is why I keep telling myself this, and this is how I show up when I tell myself this. Let me interrupt that pattern every day first thing in the morning so I can establish new patterns that serve me." Now, beyond my daily practice of doing my Curated Day Journal, I also spend some time envisioning. Now, some people have a hard time envisioning, and I totally understand that. We all process and learn in different ways. We all change in different ways. But having a vision practice for my life has changed my life. I attribute the majority of my success from me literally brainwashing myself into believing that I was going to have success, seriously, doing this every morning, and I still do it.

And I especially do it when things are hard. That's when most people give up. When it's hardest, I know I need this practice the most. It is going to be my lifeline. It's going to help me get out of it. It's going to help me shift my energy so that I can create totally different results. And so with my journal practice, I also love to spend some time really feeling and seeing and embodying that future me that I want to merge with. And the way to merge with her is to be her now. And so by envisioning her, I'm telling my brain, this is what's up. This is who we're going to be today. This is what we're going to create. And so the way that looks for me on a day-to-day basis is really thinking about what's on my plate for the day.

So let's just say, for example, today I am going to record a class, which by the way, I just did for the membership. Today, I'm going to record a class. Instead of me just getting up, having my coffee, coming straight into my office and getting to work on a class, I spend time getting myself into a state that will help me produce the best class. And I have done this in many ways. I've done this without doing this work, meaning I've recorded classes without doing this work. And I go back and look at them now and I'm like, well, girl, at least you showed up, we'll give you that, but you didn't get yourself in the state. And I can tell. I'm like, "That was not your best work." Why? Because I didn't get intentional. I was just checking something off of a to-do list. I need to record a class today. Let me go record it.

And more than ever, I want to be so intentional with the energy that I bring into my work, that I bring into my relationships. And that requires a practice like the Curated Day. And so going back to what I was saying, if I have a class, I want to spend some time in the morning thinking about how I want to be on that class, envisioning me, watching myself teach that class with so much confidence, with so much conviction, with so much passion for the topic, with so much love for my members, with the intention of seeing them step into the next level of themselves and really feeling that so that when I sit down to record the class, it almost feels effortless because I've already practiced it. I've practiced it in my mind. I've practiced it on paper with my Curated Day. And so when I show up for the event, it's as if it's already done because I've been practicing that morning. It's a little detail that had such a big impact.

So if I could encourage you all to do anything, it's to assess the details of your life. Sitting down to journal for 10 minutes is such a detail in the big scheme of things. 24 hours a day, that's such a small detail. It's a small amount of time. It doesn't take a lot, but it does take you sitting down and being with yourself, which can feel like a lot, but that's exactly what you need to address and look at and not run away from in order to get to the next level. When I think about going and sitting in the for 10 minutes and doing some breath work, it's a little detail that gets me into a state. I wake up being intentional versus reactive. When I think about my Glowtini, putting three scoops of powder into water, it's not that much.

But it's having a positive impact, not only on my emotional wellbeing, because I get to have the delight of being a woman who cares for herself in that way, that's creating the self-image of I am a woman who takes care of herself, but also the physical benefits of having more energy, taking care of my body, being able to think more clearly. When I think about my Strut and Sculpt, that feels good to my body, but it's also confirming a self-image of I am a woman who takes care of herself. And when you see yourself that way and you really get it into your subconscious, you're always going to be working to prove that true. Also, the 100 grams of protein is helping me build muscle.

It's helping me in so many ways. And also it's helping me prove to myself, this is who I am. This is my self-image. This is how I see myself. And when you see yourself in a certain way, you are always going to be working undercover to continue seeing yourself that way. And that can work for you or against you. If you see yourself as a woman who doesn't take care of herself, you're always working undercover to prove that true. I want you to see yourself in the opposite way. I want you to see yourself as expansive and healthy and vibrant. And that requires that you start to assess these little details in your life, your daily life. You can call them little details, little habits, but these little things, what are they saying about you? What are they confirming to be true about your self-image?

And when you start changing those little details, when you start switching them up and doing things that give you new evidence for who you're becoming, your life will change dramatically. It doesn't have to be this big profound action. It's these little daily details that add up over time to create the experience of your life. So that's what I've been doing over here. It's helping me to feel good. I think it's helping me to look better. It's helping me to think more clearly. It's helping me to just show up in a more expansive state. Little details, my friends, they add up.

All right, I hope you all enjoyed this episode. And listen, if you are curious about the specifics of the products that I mentioned in this episode, what I'm going to do is actually share them on my Stories the day that this episode comes out. So head over to Instagram, find me at Tonya Leigh. Make sure to hit the follow button and check out my Stories. All right, have a beautiful week, my friends, and I'll see you on next week's episode. Cheers.

Hey, before you go, I have a little gift for you that pairs beautifully with the work that we do around here. It's called The Calm Ritual. It is a short, powerful meditation to help you return to your center, quiet the noise, and reconnect with you because that's where your power lies. Real self-image work doesn't start in the mirror, it starts in the stillness. It starts with calm. So you can go to schoolofselfimage.com/becalm and begin shaping your self-image from the inside out. I'll see you next time.

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Listen to the Full Episode:Emotional Regulation: The New Discipline for a Chaotic World

Emotional regulation has become an essential skill for personal growth and success, especially in today's fast-paced and often chaotic world. The ability to manage one's emotional responses, rather than attempting to control external circumstances, is crucial for effectively navigating life's challenges.

Tonya Leigh explores the crucial concept of emotional regulation in today's fast-paced and divisive world. Tonya emphasizes that instead of trying to control external circumstances, our true power lies in managing our emotional responses. She begins with a personal check-in, encouraging listeners to assess their feelings on a scale from zero to ten.

Despite facing significant challenges, including her father's illness and business setbacks, Tonya shares how her commitment to self-work has helped her maintain a positive outlook, rating her emotional state as a nine. The episode highlights the importance of nurturing our nervous systems and offers insights into overcoming fear of the future.

Tune in for valuable strategies on how to cultivate emotional resilience and thrive in turbulent times.

Episode Details:00:44 - Self-Check: How Are You Feeling?

02:09 - Fear of the Future and Self-Image

04:45 - Understanding Self-Image and State of Being

08:42 - Subconscious Blocks and Self-Image

11:51 - External Control vs. Internal Regulation

15:01 - Self-Soothing and Mothering Yourself

18:44 - Regulation in Entrepreneurship

22:42 - New You, New Nervous System

23:14 - Join the School of Self-Image

Useful Resources: Click HERE to join the Membership * Click HERE for a FREE download * Click HERE* to sign up for our weekly newsletter, The Edit

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Click HERE to follow our TikTok
Click HERE to subscribe to our YouTube channel DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:Something has become so clear to me, especially in the world we're living in. Emotional regulation is the new discipline because let's face it, we're living in a world that demands instant reactions, and it seems like there's divisiveness everywhere. And if you're not careful, you will spend your energy trying to control the world, where your real superpower is in learning how to emotionally manage yourself, and that's what we're talking about on today's episode. So let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hey friends, how are you feeling? I want to start this episode out with us all doing a check-in. Just take a deep breath and see how you're feeling, and let's do it on a scale of zero to 10. Zero being I just want to go back to bed and wait for another day, 10 being the best you have ever felt. Where are you on the scale right now? I'm going to give myself a solid nine, not quite a 10, but I am feeling really good, and I'm feeling good because of a lot of the work that I've been doing on myself over the last months.

These have not been easy months. If I looked outside of me, I would have all of the reasons to be a two or a three. My dad is very, very sick. We've had some business issues. It just seems like I've had one obstacle after another, and yet here I am feeling like a nine today. And the secret is that I've learned to regulate my nervous system. I told my team the other day, I'm like, regulation is the new discipline because we are living in some wild times. A lot of the conversations that I'm having with people these days are around fear the future, which, if you are having that, make sure you listen to last week's episode.

There's a lot of people that are just feeling the heaviness of the world, and they're looking outside of them as a mirror of how they should feel. And if you're not pointing your attention in the right direction, chances are your brain is focused on all of the things that you should be worried about. It's focusing on all of the things that cause you anxiety, and this is why we have to manage ourselves, and this is why ladies self-image is so important. I have said many, many times on this podcast I am are the two most powerful words you will ever speak. And if you've been feeling anxiety, if you've been feeling overwhelmed and you keep repeating, I am overwhelmed, I am anxious, I am this, I am that you are telling your brain to look for all of the things that confirm this belief, the reticular activating system, that part of your brain that sifts through all of the data is constantly working for you.

How do you want to see yourself as a woman right now? What is the energy that you want to be in? How do you want to see yourself in terms of how you see your capabilities, how you see yourself in your ability to handle whatever is on your plate right now? How do you want to see yourself as it relates to your future? How do you want to see the world? It is all up to you. You get to decide, and if you don't decide on purpose, if you don't take ownership of that, you are going to have a very dysregulated nervous system. Now let's talk about why the nervous system is so important in the first place. When I think of someone's self-image, I see a state of being, and that state of being is a result of a collection of thoughts that you have that create a collection of feelings.

And when you've been thinking things for so long and feeling a certain way for so long, it creates a certain state. And there are certain states that you can be in that will allow for flow, creativity, that will open you up to new opportunities, to new possibilities that don't exist in other states. And this is why the work that we do within the school of self-image is so incredibly important. If you are someone who has been struggling to reach certain goals, if you're someone who has been shrinking under pressure, if you're someone who has been following all the formulas, you've been doing it right on paper and yet you're still having a hard time getting to the next level, I can guarantee you self-image is a part of that. Here's how I know. First of all, I've been teaching self-image for 15 years. It is the number one thing that, when I finally understood and focused on, has allowed me to create the greatest results in my life.

It's allowed me to build a very beautiful business. It's allowed me to lose weight, to keep it off. It's allowed me to create great relationships, and yet I still hit up on my self-image edges, and I see all of my clients do it as well. And it's all normal. Nothing has gone wrong. But the other day, I sat down with myself because I've had a business goal for about two years now, and I've been working really hard towards this goal, and I haven't reached it yet. And I was thinking about why that is. What's going on? Now, first of all, just know when I set goals, I set really big goals. There are many times that I don't reach my goals within the timeframe that I originally thought because I set such big goals. I love big goals because they cause me to think in a completely new way.

I literally have to create a new person in order to hit these goals, and I realized with the goal that I had set around my business, I had not changed. I was just trying to get there with more action, not more alignment. And when I realized that the other day, I was like, of course, I haven't hit that goal yet. I'm not the woman who's ready to hit that goal. I'm not comfortable with that goal yet. There are a lot of things that need to be done before I hit that goal. I need to expand my self-image to be able to hold that goal. I need to regulate my nervous system so that that goal is not so uncomfortable. Here's how you know when your self-image is aligned when you actually end up creating the thing, it's like, of course. Of course, this was going to happen.

I knew this was going to happen. It's no shock to me. It's like the first time I made a million dollars in a year. I had been practicing being that woman for so long that when my accountant called me up to be like, congratulations. I mean, it was a fun moment, but it wasn't a huge shock. I was like, yeah, I've been practicing being her for a long time. And so I say all of this, and I'm going to get to why regulation is the new discipline. It's all tied together because your nervous system is a reflection of your self-image. They're tied together, they go hand in hand. But if you have been hitting up against obstacles, if you feel like you are taking a lot of action, but you're just hitting up against walls that you cannot overcome, that is an indicator that you need to look at your self-image.

There is something within you, subconsciously, that is not a match for it, that is on some level energetically holding you back from reaching it. When you figure out what that is and you expand beyond it, the results will come. And the reason they're going to come is because you are going to let go of the subconscious blocks that you don't even know exists yet, but they're there, that stand between where you are and where you want to be. This is the work that we do inside the School of Self-Image membership. I share my process with members all of the time, and they always say, "I appreciate you being so open," because every time I set a new goal, especially the bigger it is, I have to go through this process of identifying what's holding me back. What in my subconscious is afraid of the thing that I want to create?

What part of me is not yet ready? Once I understand what that is, then I can do something about it. And again, time and time again, I see women come into this membership who have struggled for years. When they start doing this work, their businesses start growing, they start losing the weight, they start attracting opportunities. It's so fun to see what happens when a woman elevates her self-image. She's happier, she's healthier, she has a better relationship, she's more vibrant, she's more full of joy, more confident, and life just responds to a woman like that differently than the versions of us who are full of fear and doubt and anxiety. So if this is the work that you know deep down you need to do, if you have been following the formulas, if you've been doing everything right and yet it still isn't working and you know it's time to do it differently, it's time for something that is much deeper than just action alone.

Come and join us inside the School of Self-Image. We are open right now for enrollment. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/join, and I cannot wait to see you inside. I cannot wait to support you, and I cannot wait for you to see yourself in a completely new way and how the world responds differently. Now, one of the big things that we focus on within the membership is emotional mastery. The goal is to be a woman who is emotionally mature, who knows how to regulate herself, who knows how to respond with power, with confidence, and with intention. Most of the world does not operate this way, and this is actually why I was inspired to do this episode. I was on a flight recently, and it wasn't the flight that got hit by lightning, in case you heard that story. This is a whole different flight.

But I was on this flight, and there was a child sitting in his mother's lap, and the child was kicking the back of this woman's chair that was in front of them. Now, listen, that is so annoying. I get it a hundred percent, I get it. But the way this woman handled it was just evidence of how dysregulated a lot of adults are walking around being right now. She didn't turn around to the mom and say, "Hey, can you please get your child to stop kicking my seat?" She just turned around and lost it, completely lost it on this mother. And it made me realize that a lot of us are just walking around as children in adult bodies.

We are having emotional temper tantrums. We are living in a state of fight or flight. If we're not in fight or flight, we're in freeze or fawn, and we are trying to control the external world in order to feel better. If the child wouldn't kick my seat, if my children just behaved the way I wanted them to, if my business just did what I needed it to do, if my team members just did what I needed them to do, if my body would just do what I wanted it to do.

If we have all of these conditions on what needs to happen in order for us to feel emotionally stable, well, we can all see that that doesn't work out because the world is going to keep on worlding. The world is going to keep on having amazing things and difficult things. It's going to have amazing people and difficult people. It's just the way the world is, and so if our emotional state is tied to the world being a certain way, we are going to expend so much energy trying to manage something that is unmanageable. We cannot manage the world, and so this emotional regulation that I'm talking about, being the new discipline, means shifting your focus from external control to internal regulation. Now, there are many different practices to do this, and if I've learned anything from 15-plus years of coaching women, we all have different modes of operation that work better for us.

Some of my clients are very cognitive. They love to go into their heads and work things out there. Some of my clients are very somatic. They love going into their bodies. I don't think there is one right way to emotionally regulate. I think we all have to find our way. In the membership, we offer many different tools, and some tools speak better for some women than the others. And I think that's because we're also unique. If someone is selling you one way to emotionally regulate yourself, they do not understand human psychology because we all are biochemically different. We are all unique individuals. So this is about you becoming aware first of all, of what are you even feeling? It's hard to emotionally regulate when you are shut down, where you're not even feeling, where you're just reacting to the world without taking a pause and checking in.

What are you feeling in terms of your emotional state? It's going to be one word. And then how are you feeling that in your body? What are the physical sensations? Are you feeling a tight chest? Are you having a clenched jaw, shallow breathing? Just learning to be present with yourself. Nothing's gone wrong. You're just a human being having very normal human responses to life. And so if you want to have regulation, if you want to be disciplined in regulating yourself, you have to be willing to stay with yourself, to be with yourself, to be curious about what am I even feeling right now? And then it's about calming yourself down. I love to think of this as being a mother to myself, mothering myself. I think about the scared little girl within me because that's what's going on. Just the scared little girl within me, or maybe the frustrated little girl, or the angry little girl.

What does she need right now? She doesn't need to be berated. She doesn't need to be told to just be quiet, to suck it up. She wants to be acknowledged and heard, and to know that there's an adult in the room, and you get to be that adult for yourself. She may need a hug. She may need some deep breaths. She may need a different perspective. She may need to have her fears challenged of like, huh? So you're telling yourself that this will never work out. Could it be that that's the reason why you're feeling anxious? Let's sit down and look at all of the reasons why it may work out. Let's look at who you need to become so it does work out. When you start becoming this person for yourself, you will be amazed at what you're capable of. However, if you are used to having a big emotion and shutting down, and we shut down in so many different ways, some people shut down by eating.

Some people shut down by shopping. Some people react instead of feeling the emotion that they create arguments, they create divisiveness. If you're not willing to feel your emotions, you will never be emotionally regulated. I think about those years when I struggled with my weight. It was a very normal occurrence for me to step on a scale, see that I gained a couple of pounds, and literally have an emotional breakdown like a toddler, and what would I want to do? Instead of feeling the big emotions, I'd be like, "I can't do this." And I would go and eat. It was just a perpetual cycle that I was in, and it was a result of me not emotionally regulating myself, like soothing myself in those moments, learning to question those feelings. Why were they there in the first place? What were they trying to reveal to me?

So when you don't emotionally regulate, you just end up recreating patterns over and over again. And it's crazy to think all of this comes from the unwillingness just to feel energy moving in your body because that's what an emotion is. That's all it is but when we are freaking ourselves out with the nightmares in our own minds that we are envisioning about our futures, when we are feeling these feelings as a result of all of the negativity within our own brain, and we're not even questioning them, we walk around wanting to feel better, but we think the answer is to control the world. If the kid would just stop kicking my seat, if my husband would just behave the way I wanted him to, if my business would just grow the way I wanted it to grow, if all of that happened, then I could feel better.

But until then, I'm going to make myself miserable. I'm going to create so much anxiety within my body and dysregulate myself so that I don't think clearly, so that I shut down, so that I contract, and hope that that helps me create what I want. Can you all see how crazy that is? It's not the way it works, but the moment you decide to take that control inward and be like, you know what? I'm going to decide how I'm going to show up. I am going to self-soothe. I am going to calm myself down. I'm not going to wait for the world to change; I'm going to be the one that changes. That's when miracles happen. Let me share another reason why regulation is the new discipline. Whenever I am speaking to entrepreneurs, in fact, I just had a big talk with a group of entrepreneurs not too long ago, and they were asking me my secret to success.

Everybody wants the formula. Everybody wants the little tricks, the how can I have overnight success? Well, let me tell you the real secret, and it is regulating your nervous system. Here's what I mean. Regulation helps you create expanded capacity. When you are growing a business, when you are leading a team, when you are a leader of a community, you are going to inevitably hit up against a lot of obstacles. You're going to be dealing with a lot of different energies. And if you don't have the capacity to hold all of that, you are going to, again, subconsciously push it away. You're going to shut down, and you're going to limit yourself as to what you are capable of doing. But when we learn to regulate our emotional responses, when we expand our window of tolerance for discomfort and challenges and complexity, that's when we increase our capacity to handle more and not only our personal lives, but our professional lives as well.

If every time an obstacle occurs or a conflict arises and your first instinct is to fight or flee, or to fawn or to freeze, you are limiting yourself from future possibilities. Let me give you a real-life example that happened recently. I had to fire someone from my team. Now, there was a time in my life where that one decision would have crippled me. The thought of firing someone was so inconceivable. Being a people pleaser, being someone that hates conflict, that's the old me. Now, the new me I'm like, bring it. This is what we do. Now, I don't enjoy it. I don't like it. It's someone's livelihood, but if it's not a fit, it's not a fit. But I realized I had to grow into this person, and it required that I constantly soothe myself, manage and regulate my own nervous system to allow for these bigger, more expansive versions of me.

Because think about it, if that one decision caused me to shrink, I would avoid it. It would've cost me money. It would've cost me energy. It would've cost my team time. It would've just slowed everything down. So I have literally had to create a more expansive nervous system to be able to hold this bigger vision and make all of the tough decisions that come along with it. And this is why if you want an expansive life, you have to increase your capacity to feel, which means you need to learn how to regulate your nervous system. That's why regulation is the new discipline, because when you can regulate your nervous system and you don't freak out when you have that ability to just take a pause, go in, take some breaths, calm yourself down, remind yourself, I'm safe in this moment. Let me look at what's really happening.

Let me separate out the fact from the fiction because it's the fiction 99.9% of the time that's causing us to live in this state of panic, that's causing us so much anxiety. It's our fear of the future. It's the fear of what could happen, and we're running these visions in our mind of the worst-case scenarios. We're freaking ourselves out, and then we're letting that dictate our lives. You can understand why it's so hard to live a big, expansive life if you don't have the skill set of learning how to regulate your nervous system. Again, this is a lot of the work that we do in the membership because a new you is really a new nervous system. It's you with expanded capacity to feel and not contract. It's a new you with an expanded awareness of what's really going on. It's a new you that understands that you not the outside world is creating how you feel, and you taking back ownership and taking charge of that internal regulation that is going to be the key to your freedom, my friends.

So if you are ready to feel more free, if you're ready to feel more expansive, if you're just ready to feel better, more alive, more excited about your life, come and join us. I promise you, best decision you'll make this year. You can head over to schoolofselfimage.com/join. Read all about the membership. I hope to see you inside, and I hope to see you on next week's episode. Cheers.

Hey, are you ready to transform your self-image but lack direction and support? If so, I'd like to invite you to join the School of Self-Image. This is an exclusive monthly membership where you'll create your own powerful before-and-after story. Through weekly classes and coaching, you'll learn powerful techniques on how to elevate the quality of your mindset, style, and surroundings to change how you see yourself and create extraordinary results in your life. Head over to www.schoolofselfimage.com/join to learn more.

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I used to think that when life breaks you, all you’re left with is the mess. The pain. The pieces of what was.

But now? Now I know better.

Because life has tried to break me more than once. And yet, here I stand – stronger, wiser, and more me than ever.

What remains after breaking?

The parts of you that can’t be destroyed.
The wisdom you never wanted but now wouldn’t trade.
The undeniable proof that you are built for more than you ever imagined.

In this week’s podcast, I’m pulling back the curtain and sharing some of the hardest moments of my life – moments that could have shattered me completely.

But instead? They revealed me.

If you’ve ever felt like life was too much… if you’ve been through something that left you questioning who you even are anymore… I see you. And I want you to hear this. Listen to the podcast now.

Because you’re still here. And what remains after breaking? That’s where your power is.

With love & resilience,

Beautiful ScarsThe world breaks everyone, and afterward many are strong at the broken places.

~ Ernest Hemingway

Resilience isn’t about avoiding the fall – it’s about how you rise afterward.

When life shatters you, you face a defining choice: remain in pieces or create a mosaic from what remains.

The Japanese art of Kintsugi repairs broken pottery with gold, transforming damage into art. What if we approached our own breaks this way – highlighting our scars as the places where strength was forged?

Your healing isn’t about erasing what happened. It’s about weaving those experiences into something more beautiful – a self-image gilded with wisdom that only comes through surviving what once seemed unsurvivable.

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3 Times Life Almost Broke MeSome stories leave us forever changed – and today, I’m sharing mine.

In this raw, unfiltered episode, I’m opening up about pivotal moments when life brought me to my knees, the painful lessons that followed, and how these breaking points ultimately revealed strengths I never knew I possessed.

If you’re currently walking through fire or helping someone who is, this conversation might be exactly what you need to hear.

Listen to the Podcast// TheEDIT

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Listen to the Full Episode:The Power of Believing: How to Cultivate Unshakeable Faith in Yourself

To have unshakeable faith in your future, you need three types of faith:

Faith in Your Future: Believe in your vision and choose thoughts that make your future feel exciting and aligned.
Faith in Yourself: Trust yourself and keep promises to yourself. This builds self-confidence and reduces fear of the future.
Faith in the Process: Trust that every experience, good or bad, is part of your evolution. Life's challenges are stepping stones to something meaningful.

Host Tonya Leigh explores the transformative power of unshakeable faith in shaping our actions, mindset, and resilience during uncertain times. Tonya shares her excitement about an upcoming workshop focused on cultivating inner calm and confidence, emphasizing the importance of believing in our ability to rise and thrive. She reflects on her personal journey of shedding subconscious patterns over the past six months, revealing how this growth has prepared her to bring a renewed perspective to the workshop.

Tune in to discover how to strengthen your faith in the future and embrace the changes necessary for personal development.

Episode Details:01:15 - Shedding Layers

03:35 - Excitement About the Future

06:16 - Believing Before Seeing

08:47 - Unshakeable Faith in Your Direction

11:49 - Three Types of Faith Needed

17:09 - Keeping Promises to Yourself

20:00 - Criticism and Staying True to Yourself

24:17 - Falling in Love with the Process

25:11 - Connection Between Faith and a Calm Body

26:04 - Visualization Exercise

Useful Resources: Click HERE for the Unshakeable Workshop * Click HERE to join the Membership * Click HERE for a FREE download * Click HERE* to sign up for our weekly newsletter, The Edit

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Click HERE to subscribe to our YouTube channel DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:I want you to think about how your life would look different if you really had Unshakeable faith in your future. You see, faith just isn't a nice idea. It is the foundation that shapes your actions, your mindset, and your ability to keep moving forward even when life feels uncertain. So if you've been struggling to trust that the good things are coming, this episode is for you. Let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello, hello, my friends. How are you doing? I'm doing great. I am so excited about this episode. I'm so excited about this week. In case you haven't heard, I am hosting a workshop on Saturday, first time I think I've ever done a workshop on a weekend, and it's all about being Unshakeable, having that steadiness, that inner calm, that inner knowing that you're going to be okay. And not only are you going to be okay, you are going to rise and you are going to thrive. And I think I'm especially excited about this workshop because of who I have become over the last six months. I have been going through a period of shedding even more. And I thought I was done with this you all. Not completely done, but I thought I was over the hurdle because I've shed a lot in my life. But about six months ago I realized, oh no girl, we're just getting started. There's still many more layers that you need to look at, these subconscious patterns that we all have that can hold us back. And I have been working through them and I feel like I'm on the other side of that growth spurt, I guess you could call it. And so I just know I am bringing a whole new me to this workshop.

And I am going to be sharing with you all how to be Unshakeable in your life because if you don't learn how to steady yourself, if you don't learn how to emotionally regulate yourself, if you don't learn how to expand to be able to hold your dreams and all that comes with the process of creating them, you're going to live a small life. And none of us are here to live a small life. Everybody that listens to this podcast has a vision, a version of life that you want for yourself and that is a beautiful, beautiful thing. And yet maybe you've been running up against obstacles and you don't know to overcome them. You find yourself falling back into old patterns. You find yourself maybe self-sabotaging, wanting to shut down. If you are feeling any of this right now, if you are feeling unsteady, if you're feeling full of worry and fear almost to the point of feeling paralyzed, this workshop is for you. You can head to schoolofselfimage.com/workshop, get yourself signed up. You will leave at this workshop with strategies, tools, but more than anything, you're going to leave with a shift in your self-image. A shift in looking at your life and what's possible for you in a whole new way. So go get yourself signed up. Schoolofselfimage.com/workshop.

Now I, on the other side of my most recent reinvention am so excited about the future. And the way I like to describe this feeling that I have is I have Unshakeable faith in my future and I want to talk with you about what that looks like because most of the conversations that I'm having these days are with people who are very afraid of the future. They're afraid that they're businesses aren't going to grow. They're afraid that they're never going to find the love of their life. They're afraid that the money is going to run out. They are afraid of the economy, they're afraid of the political environment, they're afraid of the unknown. And I'm over here feeling excited but or and ... Let me just add, I was not feeling this way six months ago and that's why again, I'm so excited about the upcoming workshop. I'm so excited about the me that I'm bringing to this because I had to go through that to understand the process so that I could then teach you.

But I've been doing this work for over 15 years. I've gone through seasons of self-doubt, seasons of fear, and then I've come through them on the other side feeling more confident and more excited than ever. And it's me being in those, I guess you could call it darker places that make me enjoy where I am now even more. And so if you're feeling like you are in that dark place, understand that's the contrast. It's trying to guide you, it's trying to show you what you want, it's trying to show you what you want more of, what you want less of. And you will not appreciate being on the other side without this experience. So let's not fight it. Let's not resist it. Let's relax into it and learn from it. So let's talk about Unshakeable faith in the future. Let's start with defining what does faith even mean? And faith is believing in something you cannot yet see. It's knowing that the future holds something good, even if you don't have proof right now. Now if you work from the vantage point of I'll believe it when I see it, then you are energetically holding yourself back. Because think about it, there are things that currently exist that at one point didn't exist. Someone had to believe in it in order to create it.

I live by the thought of I will see it when I believe it, and I have so much evidence of that in my life. Everything that I'm currently living right now is a result of me believing in something before I could yet see it. Believing in my future, having faith in my future before it actually materialized. But the way we often operate is we let our minds run on default. If you don't manage your mind, where does your mind take you? Probably to the worst case scenarios, probably to past evidence that doesn't support you. Probably to the scary stories that you are running in your mind. And it makes sense. Your mind's trying to protect you so it's like, "Hey, listen, let's warn her of all of the things that could go wrong so that she will be protected so she will protect herself." But that is not how you create. That is not how you shift your energy to be able to show up in life in order to create the things that you want.

More than ever. We need to have faith in our futures because faith acts as an anchor during uncertainty. When life feels shaky, faith is what can keep you grounded. Faith can also fuel motivation and resilience because without faith, think about it. Every obstacle just feels final. This is it. This isn't working out for me. And when you have those types of beliefs of running subconsciously, you give up too soon, you contract, you procrastinate, you don't show up, and you end up becoming this self-fulfilling prophecy. But when you have faith, every challenge just becomes a stepping stone. You look at challenges differently. Challenges become something that are meant to grow you, to make you stronger. And sometimes the challenge may be a redirection. Maybe how you're trying to get to where you're trying to get isn't the way for you, and it's not to give up on where you want to go, but maybe that's not the direction that you need to be going to get there.

I want you to think about it like this. When you have Unshakeable faith in your future, that means you have Unshakeable faith in the direction that you are taking your life. And a great analogy is if you think about you are going to go pick up someone you love from the airport. Now, can you imagine sitting around before you even leave the house to go pick them up thinking about, but what if this happens? What if I get in a wreck? What if you there's a roadblock? No. You just get in the car and you start driving having faith that you are going to get there. And even if you encounter a roadblock, even if there is traffic and you get there later than you anticipated, you still have faith that you are going to make it to the airport to pick up your loved one. That's the kind of Unshakeable faith I'm talking about. It may be full of challenges, you may have some setbacks, but deep down anchoring in, I am going to believe so hard in myself and my future that I am going to get there one way or the other.

Now, when it comes to creating Unshakeable faith, there is what I call reactive living versus proactive living. Reactive living is when you sit around and you're waiting for life to prove that it's safe and that it's working for you. And just because of the way our brains are wired, the brain is wired to look for things to be afraid of, to worry about and so you'll never feel safe. You'll never really feel Unshakeable. However, if you operate from proactive living, you are creating safety through your faith, you're creating safety within yourself so that you can have that feeling of being Unshakeable.

Imagine navigating your career or relationships without any faith in the outcome. It would be exhausting. But the moment you have faith, you have faith of like, I'm going to find the person. I don't know how or when, but I know what I want for my life. I know what I am deserving of. I know the kind of life I want to live, and I cannot wait to have that kind of person join me on this adventure of life. That kind of faith is exciting. It makes the bad dates not so bad. You're like, "Oh, I guess that wasn't the one, but there is one out there for me." Let's go find him or her. Even with your career. If you think about really believing in a future, believing in a job that is for you that you're excited about, when you get that first or second or even third rejection letter, if you have Unshakeable faith, you don't make that mean something's wrong with me. You don't make that mean this is never going to work. You simply make that mean, oh, that's just not the one, but there is a job out there for me.

So when it comes to Unshakeable faith in your future, I've been thinking about this a lot. You need to have three types of faith. And the first is faith in your future, believing in your vision. It's not just hoping for the best, but choosing thoughts that make your future feel exciting and aligned. And what I love to tell clients is listen, none of us know what's going to happen in the future. We have no idea what is going to happen in the future. It has always been and it always will be uncertain. That is called the mystery of life. However, in this moment, you get to decide what you want to think and believe about your future. Now, the number one mistake that I see people make is that they look to the past for what they should believe about the future. Now, I want you to think about this. The future that you are wanting to create does not yet exist. And I'm going to guess that there are things in that future that you maybe have never experienced. So you are going to have to think in new ways. You're going to have to feel in ways that you've never felt. You're going to probably have to do things that you've never done. And so the past is not where you should be going for what you should be thinking about your future.

Do you know where you should go? Your imagination. As I said earlier, look around. Everything that surrounds you right now was just a thought at one point. Someone had the imagination to think about it and to believe in it and to bring it into fruition. This is why visualizing is one of my main tools that I use for creating my life on purpose. I've been doing this for 15 years, but I will tell you over the last year especially, I have gone deep into visualizing. I've had to cut off the outside noise and the world that's trying to program me as to how I should think and feel and decide on purpose what do I want to believe about my future? What do I want to imagine into being? And practice believing in that on a daily basis even when I can't see it yet.

And do you know why I love doing this? Because it's exciting and it's fun. It is not fun, my friends, to sit around dreading your day. It's not fun to sit around dreading your future and being afraid of it. It's going to happen no matter what. So why not get excited about it? Why not take back imaginative control as to what you want to think and believe about your future because that is going to affect how you show up, the actions that you take, and you are more likely to create that future if you are believing in it ,if you're having Unshakeable faith in it.The people without faith give up the people without faith live small lives, and that is not you and that not us.

So right now, I want you to think about what are three beliefs that you can believe right now because we don't want to set you up for failure by you trying to believe something that your brain cannot get on board with. This is why I teach the thought ladder within the membership. We inch our way up to the thoughts that we truly want to believe. But from where you are right now, what are three beliefs that you can believe about your future that serve you? One of my favorite beliefs is I love to believe that the best is yet to come and I am prepared to receive it with an open heart. I also love to believe that my future is full of meaningful experiences and connections. I love to believe that the future is mine to create. These are the kinds of beliefs that keep me excited and have me experiencing that Unshakeable faith in my future. It's something that I create from within, not from without. All right. So that's the first type of faith that you have to have is Unshakeable faith in your future.

Now, the next one is very important, and that is you need to have Unshakeable faith in yourself. I'm going to repeat that. You have to have Unshakeable faith in yourself because if you don't believe in you, no amount of planning will make your vision come true. I'm about to give y'all some tough love. This is the kind of love I give myself all the time and thank goodness for it. But the reason why so many people feel anxious about their futures is that they don't believe in themselves. They don't have faith in themselves. These are people that are always saying they're going to do one thing but do another. They're breaking promises with themselves. They're not showing up. And so they don't trust themselves. How can you have faith in something that you don't trust? Do you know the beauty of having Unshakeable faith in yourself is that you stop being afraid of the future? You're willing to take more risks because you have this belief no matter what, I've got me. No matter what I know, I can figure it out no matter what, I believe in myself and I trust myself that whatever comes my way, I have Unshakeable faith in me.

And you know what is possible when you feel that way about yourself? Do you know how you will walk through this world when you have the self-image of a woman who has her own back? Or when you have the self-image of a woman who believes in herself when everybody else around her is telling her she's delusional. When everyone around her is telling her, who do you think you are? And she's over there thinking, you know what, I'm going to show you?. I'm going to show all of y'all who I am. That's the kind of Unshakeable faith I want us all to have in ourselves because at the end of the day, we come into this world with us and we leave with us. That is the most important relationship you will ever have.

And if you don't have faith in yourself, what else are you going to have faith in? It's hard to have faith in life when you don't have faith within yourself. Lately, I've been having so much fun believing in a version of me that doesn't yet exist. Believing in the future me who has created the future that I am excited to create, who is where I want to be. I'm having so much fun having faith in me today, who's going to get me there and having faith in her that she's going to guide me. A lot of the work that we do within the membership is future focused. It is tapping into that future self and her wisdom, allowing her to run the show versus the scared small versions of ourselves. Imagine what your life will be like when you really embody the energy and the self-image of a woman who has her own back, who stays true to herself.

And even when she doesn't, she never beats herself up. She never leaves herself. She sits around with herself, figures it out so that she can move forward. That kind of energy you all, it makes you unstoppable. It makes you magnetic. It makes you rise when everybody else is shrinking. Those are the kinds of women we need right now more than ever. Women who have faith in themselves. And yeah, they're going to be people that talk about you. They're going to be people that tell you that you are too full of yourself. Well, who else are you supposed to be full of? There are going to be people that tell you that you are so delusional, especially if your dreams are big. The bigger your dreams, the more delusional people will think you are. But you know what that tells me? That they are living in a very shaky world. They are looking at life through the lens of what is versus what can be, and practicing believing in that. So anytime someone comes along who is believing in a vision bigger than what they can see, they frame that as delusion versus creation because that creation is believing in things that you cannot yet see. That's what creativity is all about. And guess what? Your life is your greatest form of art.

Now, if you want to start having Unshakeable faith in yourself, there's a few things you're going to need to do. Number one, you're going to have to stop listening to everybody else and what they think is possible for you and what they think of you, because everybody's going to have different opinions. Some people are going to think you're amazing, other people are going to think you're awful. That's just the nature of people. You have to go within and decide for yourself, this is how I want to think about myself. This is what I want to believe about myself. And then you need to start collecting small wins, even the tiniest ones that prove to yourself, this is who I'm becoming. This is who I am. And finally, stop breaking promises to yourself. Don't set yourself up for failure. If you know you're not going to follow through on something, just don't make that promise. Make promises to yourself that you know that you'll follow through with. Stretch yourself a little bit and make the promises bigger day by day, week by week. But you have to prove to yourself, I've got me. I trust me. Because how are you going to have faith in something that you don't trust?

Let's go back to my airport analogy. I want you to imagine that you are the one being picked up and you're also the one picking yourself up. Now, imagine, okay, the first time you don't show up to pick yourself up for the airport. So the other you is just like, "Okay. I'll grab an Uber." But the next time you come to the airport and this person, you tells yourself, I'll pick you up, and you don't get picked up by yourself, you start to lose faith in that person. You start to doubt, are they really going to pick me up? They keep saying they're going to pick me up, and they never do. And yet that's how so many of us are living with ourselves, not trusting ourselves. So if you want to have Unshakeable faith in your future, it's going to require that you have Unshakeable faith in yourself. And you can start by keeping the promises to yourself. Creating those small wins that tell yourself, Hey, I've got me. I've got me. No matter what. Then you won't be so afraid of the future.

Now, the final faith you need to have to have Unshakeable faith in your future is you need to have faith in the process. This is about trusting the journey. Faith in the process means understanding that every experience, good or bad is just a part of your evolution. Life is not going to be amazing all of the time. It's not meant to be. We don't get better. We don't become stronger when life is easy. It's about trusting that the seemingly messy uncomfortable steps are leading to something worthwhile, something meaningful, something wonderful. I think about recently I had what felt like a huge step back in the business. I talked about this behind the scenes this past month. But we had been working on a big project that just went south. It was not my best moment. And it would've been very easy to get discouraged to become so frustrated, to give up. But I've done this work so long, I was like, oh no, this is just part of the process and it's going to make me such a better leader. I learned so much, and already things are so much better. The team is stronger. I feel like the membership is better than it's ever been. It's just so much good has come out of that very difficult obstacle, and that's what faith in the process looks like.

Within the School of Self-Image, I teach the self-image method, and that's our process that we use day in and day out to joyfully reinvent ourselves and our lives. And one of the things that I really drive home to members is that when you fall in love with the process, this work becomes so much easier. And not only does it become easier, it becomes so much more fun, but we want the outcome. We want to be in that future already, but all we ever have is right now. That's all we ever have. Now, I love imagining my future. I love creating my future, but it's created in the here and now and the here and now is a result of how you're showing up. And to me that is the process.

And so when you know deep down that you can trust the process, that you can have faith in it and you have faith in yourself, and you have faith in your future, you will amaze yourself with what you end up creating. It's when we doubt our future, when we doubt ourselves and we doubt the process, that's when we don't show up. That's when we don't take the risk. That's when we keep ourselves so small. And not only that, we create a dysregulated nervous system, and that's the secret to all of this work. The connection between faith and a calm body is huge because you can't think your way into faith if your body feels threatened.

And that's the work that we're going to be doing at the upcoming workshop. We're going to learn how to literally calm our nervous systems down and step into that Unshakeable energy, that energy of you moving, speaking, living, and acting like your future self. That future you that had the audacity to believe in her future, to believe in herself, to trust the process, to create what it is that she wanted to create. That is what we're stepping into. So come and join us. Go to schoolofselfimage.com/workshop. I cannot wait to see you there. And I forgot to mention, as soon as you join, you are going to get instant access to my Unshakeable walking visualization. Whenever I'm experiencing doubt about my future, whenever I'm feeling that unsteadiness within myself when my brain feels very clouded, I love to pop in this visualization. It's about 20 minutes long. I love to go on a walk and I love to remind myself of who I really am. And I'm telling you all it will shift your state, and when you shift your state, you shift your entire life. So go grab that walking visualization, go listen to it today. Start to tap into that energy, and then just imagine what we're going to do at the workshop. We're going to have so much fun. I cannot wait to see you there. Saturday, May 17th, again, schoolofselfimage.com/workshop.

And I want you to remember, your future is shaped by the faith that you practice today. So let's end with you thinking about what is one belief that you're going to choose to hold onto right now? Practice it, feel it, show up and provide evidence for it. And you do that over and over. Day after day, you're going to amaze yourself with what is possible.

Have a beautiful week, my friends, and I cannot wait to see you all at the workshop, and I'll see you in next week's episode. Cheers.

Hey, before you go, let me ask you a question. When was the last time you felt truly grounded? Not because everything around you was calm, but because you were. If you are tired of anxiety, the noise, the emotional whiplash of trying to stay steady in a world that's constantly pulling you in every direction, I want to invite you to something different. Unshakeable is more than a workshop. It's a reset, a reclamation, a reminder of the woman you've always been beneath the noise. If you're ready to stop letting the outside world shake your inner world, if you are craving clarity, confidence, and emotional freedom, if you are ready to anchor into a deeper kind of strength, the kind no one can take from you, then Unshakeable is your next step. Join me not to hustle harder or fix yourself, but to rise in a new way, to be rooted, to feel radiant, to feel resilient, not in spite of the chaos, but because of who you choose to be within it. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/workshop, and I look forward to seeing you on May 17th.

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Listen to the Full Episode:Unmasking Your True Self: Discovering Freedom Beyond the Faux Self

When we operate from our faux self, we may find ourselves making choices based on what we think we should want or what will garner approval from others. This can manifest in various ways, such as pursuing a career that looks good on paper but does not fulfill us, or acquiring material possessions to impress others rather than to satisfy our own desires. Tonya shares the story of a client who felt trapped in a high-paying job that brought her no joy, illustrating how the faux self can lead to a life that feels suffocating and unfulfilling.

Tonya explores the profound question, "Who are you really?" She shares her morning routine and the productivity that comes with starting the day early. She introduces a life-changing concept she learned from Martha Beck during her coach training: the distinction between the social self and the essential self. This episode delves into how understanding this concept can empower listeners to shift from feeling like victims of their circumstances to becoming creators of their own lives, our own true identities and explores the origins of their self-perceptions, prompting a deeper exploration of personal authenticity. Tune in for insights that could transform your understanding of yourself and your potential.

Episode Details:00:52 - Social Self vs. Essential Self

04:06 - Defining the Worldly Woman

08:47 - The Role of the Faux Self in Success

10:20 - True Desires vs. Faux Desires

14:05 - True Desires and Money

18:04 - Childhood Memories and True Self

22:02 - True Self and the Win-Win Approach

25:03 - The Challenge of Sudden Change

27:00 - The Work of Getting Back to Your Authentic Self

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Click HERE to subscribe to our YouTube channel DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:Who are you really? That is the question that we are exploring on today's episode, so let's dive right on in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello, my beautiful friends. How are you doing? I'm sitting here sipping my coffee. I got up at 5:00 AM this morning, wide awake, ready to go. It is now 8:00 and I have gotten so much done. Every once in a while I'll have these mornings, and when I do, it's like I want to capture whatever's happening because I'm like, this is the way to start the day. I feel like I've already completed a whole workday and now I get to hang out with you all on today's episode. Today's going to be fun. We're talking about a concept that truly changed my life, and I learned this through Martha Beck when I went through her coach training all those years ago. What was it? Back in 2008?

She taught a concept called social self versus essential self. And if you want to read more about it, go check out her book Finding Your Own North Star. It's one of my favorite books because it was truly one of those gateway books that really opened me up to the power of our own mind and how we have the ability to change the trajectory of our lives and create completely new results for ourselves. I think up until the point I met her, I felt like I was at the effect of my life versus being the creator of my life. And so I want to start today's episode out with a question. If I asked you who you are really, what would you say? And more importantly, would it be the truth? How do you know? And where did your answer come from?

Was it something that was offered to you? Was it an answer of who you were told you were supposed to be? Does that answer come from your past and the stories that you have created about yourself? And I think the most important question here is do you like how you answered that question? Who are you? I know I've told this story a million times, but for those of you who are new to the podcast, I remember being asked this question 2:00 AM, while I was working as a critical care nurse by a doctor who was visiting. And he turned to me and he said, "Tonya, who do you want to be? Now it's a little bit of a different variation of the question, but he was like, "Who do you want to be?" And I did not know how to answer him. It was such an interesting question.

I'm like, I'm a grown woman. This is what you get asked when you're kid like, "What do you want to be when you grow up? What do you want to do?" But sitting there as a woman, working as a critical care nurse, I was speechless. And I said to him, "I want to be a good mom, a good wife, and a good nurse." And he said, "I'm not talking about the roles you play in life. Who do you want to be as a woman? Your essence?" And I didn't even realize that was a choice at the time, actually. I just thought we were who we were, that it was unchangeable that it was permanent. But it started to play with me and I was like, huh, that's a really interesting question because the way he posed it's almost as if I had a choice. And I'll never forget driving home that morning and the word popped into my mind and I was like, oh, this is ridiculous. There's no way I can be this.

I mean, I grew up in a trailer. I grew up very humble beginnings. I grew up Pentecostal holiness. We've never traveled because the word was worldly. I wanted to be a worldly woman. And when I stopped all the chatter and I just allowed myself to consider the possibility of that one word, it felt like home. You know what it's like? It's like my soul came here to be that, and somehow I got kidnapped and I was trying to find my way back to it. It felt expansive, it felt exciting, it felt so just joyful to consider myself to be a worldly woman. And for me, that was a woman who is at home in the world because she's at home with herself. She knows she can handle her own no matter where she is, she can have conversations about almost everything.

She isn't panicked when someone walks up to her and wants to have a conversation because she knows who she is. She's well traveled, she understands culture and the arts and philosophy. I mean, to me, that's what it meant to be a worldly woman. And I know now looking back, that was coming from what I call my true self. Now Martha Beck would call it your essential self. And now looking back on my journey, I can see that that is when I started to address the restlessness, the disconnection, the feeling like I was playing a role in my own life because that was the faux self, the self that was designed to please, to impress, and to conform. It was the part of me who was trying to be a good girl and to do what everyone expected of me. And this is why this episode exists.

It is here to remind you that there is no freedom when the faux self is in control. And isn't freedom what we all want? I know we say we want different things, but at the end of the day, I feel like we all want freedom. We want to feel that expansiveness of feeling like we have control over our own lives. We want to feel like we get to determine our reality. And if your faux self is in charge, you're not going to be happy with what you create. So let's talk about the faux self, that carefully curated version of you that you've created over the years. It is very rare to meet someone who is not living in their faux self. And I say this with so much compassion and empathy because I have been there and even to this day I find myself sometimes being in my faux self. To find someone who is fully in their true self is such a rarity because it takes so much courage and a lot of people won't like you.

I think about my man, Fonz. Now the people that love him, love him, but there are people that don't like him, and guess what? He does not care. I think he's probably the one person, him and my mother, those are the two people in my life that I've come across that I can say are in their true selves almost all of the time. They speak their mind, they don't try to impress you, and they also ironically are not the most loving people you will ever meet because if you think about it, when you're in your faux self, you're lying. You're lying to others, you're lying to please others, you're lying to yourself. And we don't do this consciously. We don't do this because we're bad people. If we look at the reality of it, our faux self has helped us create a lot of success in our lives.

It probably kept you out of trouble when you were a kid. It probably helped you get those promotions at work. Maybe it helped you get into that friend group that you were wanting to be in. And so the faux self, or as Martha Beck would call it, the social self has served us and even to this day, the faux self can still serve us. I think it's the part of us that has a little bit of decorum that knows, hey, just because you're pissed off at someone, you don't walk up and slap them. It keeps us in check sometimes, but the problem is when it runs the show. Because the faux self is all about wearing mask performing roles and mistaking that performance for your identity. I know this firsthand. I think about the times that I've been in my faux self, and there are numerous, my friends. So let me just think about some of the examples that I can share with you that maybe you can relate to.

But I do remember when I first started what I consider to be my personal development journey. So for example, when I decided I wanted to be a worldly woman, I mistakenly thought that that meant expensive things, right? When I thought about a worldly woman, I'm like, oh, well, she is well-dressed an all designer and obviously she needs to look really expensive. And so looking back now, I can clearly see that was just the faux self because if you think about it, that is outwardly focused. What are other people going to think of me if they see me, I don't know, carrying this handbag? And so I can even see some of my purchases back in the day were driven from the faux self. Now it's part of my journey that I am not ashamed of. Many of those purchases changed me, not the actual purchase themselves, but me overcoming the chatter that, "You don't deserve this. This is a waste." And I can also clearly see that it was also the faux self driving it.

Over the years, I've learned to really stop and take a pause and think, "Would I want this if no one would ever see it?" Would I want to invest my money, my time, my energy in this thing if no one would ever know about it? That's how you know if it's a true desire versus a faux desire. Because that's the thing I've learned, if it's a true desire, you will want it no matter what, and you'll be willing to go through all of the failures and the challenges that are going to come along to create that thing and you'll enjoy it when you actually achieve it, versus when you go after a faux desire, often the journey is very unfulfilling as well as when you achieve it, you're like, "Oh, this doesn't feel like I thought it was going to fill. I'm not happier, I'm not more fulfilled."

And that's the thing, when you listen to the faux self, it's going to lead you in the wrong direction most of the time. Not all of the time, but most of the time. Now the part of you that says don't go and punch that person in the face, well, that's the faux self-supporting you, helping you. Because it knows that that's probably not a good thing to do, whereas your true self may want to do that, but you can see that when the part of you that is programmed to please, to be approved of, to impress, to keep everyone happy, when that part of you is in control, who suffers? You do. I think about one of my clients who came to me and stuck in a career she actually hated, but she stayed in it because she got a lot of praise.

She felt like that job, that career was proving her worthiness. She was a high-level executive making well over six figures, but every day she felt like she was suffocating, and the moment she admitted to herself, I don't want this life, everything changed. She finally listened to her true self and she ended up leaving her career and pursued her passion. And although it was scary, she told me, she was like, "I finally feel alive. It's a feeling that I haven't felt in years. I was so numb." I have another client who... And some of you all can probably relate to this because she had built this picture perfect life. She had the big house, she had the fancy cars, she vacationed in the fancy places, and yet she felt so unfulfilled and she admitted that she was just playing a role instead of truly listening to her soul and her truth.

And so she finally admitted to her husband that she wanted a simpler, more creative life. And everything shifted. What was crazy about her is that her husband had been feeling the same way, but he was too afraid to admit it. It's almost like they had created this prison for themselves, and neither of them were looking at each other and being like, "Listen, we feel trapped." But the moment she had the courage to say to him, "I don't want this anymore," he had the courage to admit he didn't want it either, and they ended up selling their home downsizing, and she said, "I've never been happier." Now sometimes the opposite could be true. You may want a bigger house that could be a true desire for you. We don't need to judge other people's desires and what they want.

One of the questions that was asked of me recently, and I thought it was a really great one, they were like, "Is the desire for money a true desire?" And I had to think about that one for a minute because I want us all to have the money and to be abundant and to be able to do what we want to do, and I don't think that money in and of itself is a true desire. I want you to think about this. If it were just a piece of paper sitting on your desk, would you want it? That's all it did. That's the sole purpose. It's just sitting there. No, you're like, what use is this? It's just clutter. The true desire is behind what you want the money for, right? So maybe your true desire is to be able to give your kids a great education. Maybe your true desire is to have the beautiful handbag because you really appreciate quality and luxury and you don't care if anyone ever saw it, but you get to see it and you love it.

Your true desire may be giving to philanthropic organizations. Maybe your true desire is to build a beautiful art gallery. Everybody's desires are different, and this is where you need to be very careful because the faux self will tell you what you should and shouldn't want. Sometimes it's going to tell you to go after material things to impress other people. Sometimes the faux self will say, "Don't you dare do that. How dare you want a fancy car? That's not what you should want." But what if you really love fancy cars? I think about Fonz. He loves cars. He could care less about other things, but cars are his thing. They bring him so much joy. He will sit in them, he takes care of them, he washes them at least every couple of days. He loves cars. I could care less about a car, but you know what I do enjoy? A house.

I had so much fun designing and planning my house last year. Well, for the last two years actually. And now that I'm in it, I don't want to leave. I've become such a homebody, you all. But then I think back to when I was a kid, guess what I did? I would draw house plans. I loved architecture as a child. I love any kind of home decor or architectural digest. Those magazines I've always been drawn to. Now some people like my client, she felt trapped by that, and that's why we have to tune out the noise of the world and get in touch with our truest self, the part of us who knows our truth. And I love what Martha Beck says, "You will know your truth because it will taste like freedom."

The faux self is who you think you should be. Your true self is something that you create by getting in touch with your deepest desires, by getting in touch with what you value, by remembering who you are before the world told you who you should be. So how do you recognize her? How do you recognize your true self? Well, I'll tell you how I recognize her. She feels like ease. Have you ever done something, maybe you wore something or you spoke in a certain way or you made a decision, and you felt this exhale of relief? You felt maybe expansion that is your true self. I think to a recent decision that I made that my faux self was trying to convince me that I needed to wait to make it, but the moment I made it, I just felt so much relief. That's because my true self showed up and she made that decision.

Also, your true self is the part of you that existed before you cared what other people thought. As I was saying earlier, it's going back to my childhood. I can see the things that I loved. I could see who I was, how I behaved. I was so joyful. I was so free. I wasn't afraid of what people thought. And I want you to think about that. When you were a child before you started to be socially programmed, what did you love? Who were you? For me, I remember even as a kid, my mom made my clothes and she would make me the most fancy dresses, and I always wanted to wear those dresses, the ones with the ruffles and the lace. I loved spinning around and my skirt would fly up. It was just so much fun. I loved being fancy, even as a kid. Loved it.

I didn't know that people were looking or judging. I just loved how it felt. Now for you, you may think back to your childhood and you'd be like, Tonya, I loved being in trousers, playing in the dirt, although I did that too. I lived on a dirt road, so we made mud pies. I enjoyed that as well. But you may look back and realize I wasn't into fancy things. I was a tomboy. And that's beautiful too, to recognize that. Maybe when you look back at your childhood, you remember, "Oh my God, I used to love drawing and painting. I used to love playing sports." Your true self is that part of you that existed before the world told you who you should be and before you started caring what people think. Also, your true self, she makes decisions based on desire, not fear. The faux self will say things like, I should or shouldn't do this because it looks good or it doesn't look good.

I shouldn't do this because if I do it, people are going to be upset. So you find yourself looking around at the outside world letting it dictate to you what you should and shouldn't do in order to please it. And the unfortunate thing is you can't please the world. Inevitably, there will be some people that are pleased and some people that won't be. So you've set yourself up for failure because you're never going to be able to please everyone. Now I do want to speak to something that I've been wanting to talk about for a while because I've seen in the personal development space, and I even got caught up in this too, you all, of the pendulum swinging in another direction where you become so self-focused and I'm the only one that matters, and it's all about what I want and it's me, me, me world, and you end up making decisions that can hurt a lot of people.

I know when I first started my journey, I did this and I'm not proud of it, but it was me exploring. It was like the immature Tonya who was trying to hear herself again, who was trying to get in touch with what she really wanted. And I've come to understand now, when I get in touch with my true self, when I get really quiet and I just allow myself to get into that place of expansiveness and love, it almost feels like when I'm in those moments of really deep meditation, it's like I go beyond myself. And when I'm in that space, I just naturally factor in the people I love. I realize that we're all connected. So it's not just me, me, me, it's us.

And so my true self, what I have discovered is always looking for the win-win. It's always looking for the yes, and. It's not I'm just going to do what I want to do and not care what you think. And I'm talking about the people closest to me because if I get too called up in what the world thinks, then the faux self is in charge. But I'm talking about the people closest to me. When I'm in that space, it's us and how can I show up and honor my true desires as well as honor them? Now sometimes that means me making decisions that maybe they're not happy with, but I've made it from a place of love. I haven't made it from that wild child energy of just screw you. It's all about me. I don't care what you think, I'm just going to go and do me. It's not that kind of energy. It's like I've really spent time thinking about what feels right, and I think that's how the true self makes choices. What feels right? And that is going to be different for all of us.

But as Martha Beck says, "You will know your truth because it will taste like freedom." And sometimes that's going to mean pissing a lot of people off, even the people closest to you. And sometimes it's going to mean you taking a deep breath and really thinking about alternatives because that's what feels right. Now here's the not so fun part of waking up to your true self. It can be very painful because when you stop playing the role that people expect, some people will be disappointed, some people will judge you, you will fail, people will talk. But here's the question I asked myself, would you rather be judged for being real or praised for being fake? Now listen, no one wants to be fake, and I don't think people are being fake on purpose. I think we have just been so conditioned to wear these masks under the fakeness is just a lot of fear, and I think we need to approach people in that way.

I think we need to approach people with empathy and compassion because we've all been there. There's no one listening to this who hasn't been fake in the past. I mean, fake is people pleasing. Fake is lying to yourself. Fake is trying to get approval. Fake is showing up in ways that compromise your values. We've all done it, and maybe you're even doing it now. I might do it later today, right? So don't judge yourself for it. I just think it's a beautiful question to ask yourself. Would you rather be judged for being real or praised for being fake? I mean, let's face it, praise feels so much better than judgment. But what's the ultimate cost here? People fall in love with the fake version of you, and then you have to keep up that facade, and that's why change is so hard. What's really crazy to think about in a moment, we could all just step into our true selves.

Boom. Done. I'm going to live this truth no matter what. But the reality is not only cognitive dissonance, but the pushback that you get from the people around you when you make sudden changes, even the people that love you the most, it's a little bit jarring. People are like, "Whoa." I remember when I started showing up in a new way. The people that love me the most were like, "Who do you think you are? What are you doing? Why are you changing the way you speak?" I completely changed my accent, by the way. I used to have such a country accent. I talked like this. I heard a video or an audio of me talking, my mom had, and I'm like, "Are you kidding me? I used to sound like that?" But truly, no one could understand me when I would travel. They'd be like, "What planet are you from?"

And so I decided to change my accent. But when I started, can you imagine being around my country family and me trying to change my accent? They made so much fun of me, and I just let them. I was like, all right, go ahead. But now, years later, it's just who they now know me to be. But it was uncomfortable when I was going through that. And I think this is why oftentimes we take change slow because if we change a little bit more slowly, the pushback from the people around us isn't as drastic. It happens over time and before you know it, you're like, "Oh, wow. I'm completely different." And each little change has allowed them to catch up without it being so jarring. But it is really cool to think that we could just step into our true selves right now, but do you have the capacity and the willingness to feel all of the resistance that you are going to have, not only within you, but from the people around you?

There's no way to do this wrong. There's no way. I will tell you, little by little honoring your true self, you're going to be so much more fulfilled. I think back to the thousands of clients that I have coached and witnessing their journeys, and I realize this is the work. This is everything. It's getting back to your authentic self-image. Your authentic self-image is seeing yourself at your most expansive, most joyful, most loving self. And it really is more about just shedding than adding. It's more about letting go of all the shoulds, letting go of the expectations from others and listening to yourself again. And that is a skill, learning to listen to yourself, especially after years of listening to everyone and everything outside of you. It may sound silent.

Silence isn't a sound, but there's silence there when you're like, "What do I love? What do I want? What does bring me joy? What do I want to eat? What is my favorite color?" And you're drawing a blank. You're like, "I don't know what..." I've always paid attention to what I thought it should be. And this is why I love this work so much. Seeing women step into their true selves is one of my greatest joys. We just changed our membership platform and we have a brand new community platform as well, and I've been in there a lot, and just the energy is ridiculous. It's so fun.

But seeing women's stories, seeing their pictures, their before and after pictures. And then their after picture, you can see that the life has come back into their eyes. You can see the vitality. And then they're reporting on all of these things that they're doing and accomplishing, and it's all because they had the willingness to stop and ask, "What do I deeply, deeply want? Who am I really at my core? Who am I beyond my roles as a mother, as a daughter, as a wife, as a business owner? Who am I really?" That's the question I want us all to be asking ourselves. She's already within you. It's not something you have to go out there and find. You just have to get quiet long enough to listen to her. She's trying to speak to you, always. Are you listening?

If today's episode resonated with you, I want to let you know that the School of Self-Image membership is open right now. And we've been getting a lot of questions from those of you who aren't in the membership and you're curious about the changes and what is different, what is the same. And so I'll tell you right now. We spent last year really going through feedback, sitting down as a team and getting clear on how we can best support our members. Every decision that we've made has had our members in mind. And so we built out a brand new platform that is so streamlined, so elevated, and it's just taken this membership to the next level. I spent a week with my team refilming the Self-Image Method and the Self-Image Studio, which used to be called The Dream Atelier. And that has become the framework for our months together.

The Self-Image Studio is held each month at the end of the month where we come together and we plan out your month, 30 days at a time. And I want to just tell you all that I'm going to request that your true self shows up for that planning session. It's very important. We don't want to be planning from shoulds, we want to be planning from true desires. We have also laid out paths for our members because you have to understand self-image work is applicable to every area of your life because your self-image is influencing everything. It's influencing your relationships, your finances, your health and wellness, the state of your home, the state of your closet, literally every area of your life.

And so we have divided up four paths that you can choose based on what you discovered during the self-image method. So we have the path of elegant success, the path of stylish living, vibrant well-being, and magnetic presence. And so when you come in as a member and you go through the self-image method, you get to choose the path that you want to focus on. And we have organized our curriculum around these four paths. You also get a monthly self-image class taught live as well as Q&A calls, a coaching call, and then you get access to our vibrant community.

I mean, I'm telling you all, this is worth the price of the membership alone. To see these women not only connect online, but they are getting together in person, in cities, not just in the States, but across the world, it just delights me because one of the core pillars of my teaching methodology is surroundings, and how important your environment is, and the fact that we have created such an expansive, uplifting environment of women who are cheering each other on who understand this work, the kind of place where you don't have to worry about being judged for what you want. It is all celebrated. It is all supported. This community is just...I mean, women tell me all of the time, "I'm in a lot of online forums, but I've never come across a community that is so supportive and expansive and just fun." We have fun together.

And so if you want to take this work to the next level, if you want to spend time really listening to yourself and taking steps to honor the answers that are coming from the questions that you're asking of yourself, if you want to spend the year going after something that is uniquely yours, that's a true desire, if you want to learn the tools to manage your mindset and to live a life on purpose, if you want to learn how to curate your days with intention, this membership is for you, and I would be delighted to have you come and join. So all you need to do, my friend, is go to schoolofselfimage.com/join. You can see our brand new membership page, tells you all about it, and I look forward to supporting you inside the School of Self-image. Have a beautiful week, my friends. And I will see you on next week's episode. Cheers.

Enjoy the Show? Don't miss another episode!Pick your favorite platform below:The Self-Image Manifesto

You’re Invited To Live An Extraordinary Life!

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You know what’s fascinating about New Year’s resolutions? For years, I approached them with a “fixing” mindset, like I was some kind of human repair shop.

Fix my body. Fix my bank account. Fix my business.

Fix, fix, fix...

And underneath all that fixing was an even more insidious belief: something was wrong with me.

After all, if all these areas of my life needed repair, surely I was the common denominator, right?

Wrong.

Here’s what I finally understood: the very idea of “fixing” implies that something’s broken.

When we see ourselves as broken, we create this exhausting cycle – taking action after action but never addressing the real issue: our fundamental view of ourselves as problems to be solved.

Then, I had this breakthrough. What if, instead of being the broken thing that needs fixing, I was the designer of my life?

Everything changed.

You see, designers don’t view their projects as problems to be fixed. They approach their work with the lens of possibility and curated choices.

They ask questions like: What do I want to create? What elements would make this beautiful? How can I arrange things to serve the overall vision?

In this week’s podcast, I share how this shift from “fixer” to “designer” has completely transformed how I approach not just the new year but every single day.

Because when you stop trying to fix yourself and start designing your life instead, you unlock a whole new level of creativity and possibility.

Here’s to designing your next chapter,

P.S. Ready to trade in your tool belt for a designer’s notebook? Let’s create something beautiful together.

When Life Becomes DesignStyle is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.

~ Gore Vidal

There’s a profound difference between approaching life as a series of problems and seeing it as a canvas for design.

Designers don’t walk into a room thinking about what’s wrong – they envision what’s possible. They understand that every element is a deliberate choice that shapes the overall experience.

This week, try shifting your perspective from problem-solver to life designer. “What needs to be fixed?” becomes “What do I want to create?”

Live Like an Editor | Design Your Next ChapterEver wished you could approach your life with the same precision and vision that goes into curating a luxury magazine? That’s what awaits in our upcoming Live Like an Editor workshop. Over five luxurious days, you’ll learn to edit your life with intention, curate your experiences with purpose, and design each day with the sophistication of a master editor.

This is your invitation to become the Editor-in-Chief of your own life, where every choice is intentional and every day is an opportunity to create something remarkable. Join us and discover what becomes possible when you take creative control of your story.

Join Live Like An EditorHow to Curate Your Life Like a DesignerWhat if every choice in your life was an opportunity to create something beautiful? In this week’s episode, I reveal how embracing a designer’s mindset can transform everything – from how you dress in the morning to how you structure your day.

Whether you’re craving change or dreaming of building something entirely new, this conversation will help you see your life through fresh eyes.

Listen to the Podcast// TheEDIT

A weekly digital magazine by the School of Self-Image

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A couple of weeks ago, I revealed my Word of the Year in the podcast (if you missed it, you can catch up here).

But living up to this word requires embracing another powerful tool in my arsenal – a tiny but mighty two-letter word: NO.

I’ve started thinking of it this way: “No” is my new black.

And you know what? It’s the perfect antidote to “should season.”

Let’s talk about “shoulds” for a moment. They sneak into our lives like uninvited guests, making themselves comfortable in our decision-making process.

“You should take on that project.”

“You should attend that event.”

“You should, you should, you should…”

Before we know it, our lives are cluttered with other people’s expectations and obligations that don’t truly align with our values.

That’s where “no” comes in – elegant, simple, and surprisingly powerful. Just like that perfect little black dress, “no” helps you eliminate the excess and focus on what truly matters.

It’s the ultimate should-busting accessory.

In this week’s podcast, I’m diving deep into how these persistent “shoulds” keep us from living authentically and how mastering the art of “no” might just be our ticket to freedom.

Because sometimes, the most powerful way to banish a “should” is with a well-placed “no.”

Here’s to saying “no” to the “shoulds”!

The Elegant Edge of NoHalf of the troubles of this life can be traced to saying yes too quickly and not saying no soon enough.

~ Josh Billings

Like a master artist knowing precisely what to leave out of their composition, there’s an understated power in the word “no.” In a world that constantly demands more of our time, energy, and attention, the ability to say “no” with grace becomes our most sophisticated skill.

Think of each “no” as a careful edit to your life’s story. When you decline what doesn’t serve you, you create space for what does. Your “no” isn’t just a rejection – it’s a declaration of what you value, a statement of self-worth that ripples through every aspect of your life.

This week, notice how many “shoulds” try to slip into your daily decisions. Then, practice wielding your “no” with the quiet confidence it deserves.

The Year of Magical ThinkingI keep this book on my bedside table like a trusted friend. When I first read it, I was struck by its grace and clarity in capturing life’s most challenging moments. It’s become my go-to reminder that we always have the power to choose our response to life’s unexpected turns.

What I love most is how it shows us that saying “no” – to comfortable narratives, to what we think we should feel, to the stories we tell ourselves – can be an act of tremendous courage. I repeatedly return to these pages when I need inspiration to stand firm.

Purchase the Book“Should” Season is OutThat committee you reluctantly joined? The social event that drained your energy? The project that wasn’t aligned with your goals? How many times have you said “yes” when every fiber of your being wanted to say “no”?

I’m pulling back the curtain on the exhausting cycle of “shoulds” and sharing my own journey from people-pleaser to peace-finder. We’ll explore why the word “no” might just be the most luxurious form of self-care.

Whether you’re drowning in obligations or simply ready to reclaim your time and energy, this conversation will give you the confidence to set boundaries that honor your authentic self.

Listen to the Podcast// TheEDIT

A weekly digital magazine by the School of Self-Image

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Listen to the Full Episode:From Burnout to Empowerment: How One Woman Took Control of Her Story

In the journey of personal growth, particularly when grappling with feelings of isolation and burnout, the significance of surrounding oneself with supportive individuals cannot be overstated. Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy's experience, as shared in the podcast episode, underscores the importance of having a network that fosters growth and provides a sense of belonging.

In this episode of the School of Self-Image, host Tonya Leigh welcomes Caroline, who shares her transformative journey after leaving a successful corporate career in late 2021. Caroline discusses how she learned to become the editor in chief of her own life, empowering herself to create meaningful changes. Since embracing this mindset, she has launched two purpose-driven businesses, published a book on Amazon, and enhanced her relationships as a mother and wife. Caroline’s inspiring story highlights the importance of living intentionally and provides insights on how to stop reacting to life’s twists and instead, start creating your own narrative.

Join Tonya and Caroline as they explore the tools and mindset shifts that can help you stop living life by default and start creating it intentionally. Plus, learn more about the upcoming Live Like an Editor workshop.

Episode Details:00:22 - Caroline's Achievements Post-Corporate Career

01:21 - Corporatte Burnout

02:57 - Feeling Unfulfilled Despite Success

04:06 - Realization of Misalignment with Motherhood

06:22 - Living Life by Default

08:45 - Shifting Perspectives and Addressing Objections

11:44 - Becoming a Coach and Finding Purpose

15:02 - Being the Editor-in-Chief of Your Life

18:15 - Caroline's Word for the Year: Expansive

21:07 - Learning Through Stories

24:06 - Unpacking Past Experiences

27:43 - Realization of Isolation

30:07 - Managing Spousal Stress

34:00 - Impact of Learning Tools on Parenting

37:56 - Belief in Possibility and Daily Habits

43:30 - Teaching Gratitude to Daughter

46:11 - Advice for Burnt Out Women

Useful Resources: Click HERE for the Live Like an Editor Workshop * Click HERE to join the Membership * Click HERE for a FREE download * Click HERE* to sign up for our weekly newsletter, The Edit

Connect with Master Life Coach Tonya Leigh:

Click HERE to follow our Instagram
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Click HERE to visit our Facebook group
Click HERE to follow our TikTok
Click HERE to subscribe to our YouTube channel

Connect with Caroline:

Click HERE for Caroline’s Website
Click HERE for Bliss by Caroline DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:Tonya Leigh:

Have you ever felt like you were living someone else's story, like you were stuck reacting to life's plot twist instead of writing them for yourself? Well, today's guest knows that feeling all too well. After walking away from a successful corporate career in late 2021, she discovered something powerful: the art of becoming the editor in chief of her own life. Since then, she has launched two purpose-driven businesses, published a book on Amazon, strengthened her marriage and has become a calmer, more present mother. Her secret? Learning to live like an editor. If you are ready to stop living life by default and start creating it instead, I invite you to join us for our upcoming Live Like an Editor Workshop, five days where you are going to learn the exact tools and mindset shifts that helped today's guest transform her life. You can secure your spot at schoolofselfimage.com/editor. And without further ado, let's dive into the before and after story of Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy.

Intro:

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Tonya Leigh:

You discovered my work through Live Like an Editor and it had such a big impact on your life. So Caroline, thank you so much for being a guest on the podcast and for sharing your story. Welcome.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Thank you so much for having me. I'm very honored and I hope I can inspire more women to go through the journey I've been through thanks to your wonderful community and your teaching.

Tonya Leigh:

Thank you so much. So I'd love for you to take us back to, I think it was 2021 and I'm sure on paper your life looked really successful but something didn't feel right inside. And I think this is something that we hear often with women when they come to the membership. You had just left a corporate career and you described it as you were just burnt out. Paint a picture of what was going on for you back then.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes, I think just to take everybody back, I'm originally from a super small tropical French island in the middle of Indian Ocean. My dream was to live in New York and work for a luxury brand, which felt so foreign and unachievable at the time. And through lots of different circumstances, I was able to come here. And a year in this country, I had my dream job, wonderful brand, and as you said, everything seemed good on paper. I had been following this path of success, ticking the boxes, having the wonderful office with the view and the title and the car and buying an apartment, et cetera. Everything was completed and yet it felt like there was always something missing. And I spent a lot of time, a lot of my free time reading and thinking about what could be missing. I have a wonderful husband who's been very supportive. It didn't really quite make sense.

And in the summer of 2019, I had my daughter, our first and only child, and it was wonderful. Returned to work and started to feel that what I was capable of sustaining at the time felt not possible anymore, like leaving the house and she was still asleep, coming back home, putting her to bed. And this was not the mother I wanted to be. So it started to bug me a little bit. And the pandemic happened in March, we were sent home and I was like, "This is it. This is perfect. I can actually do the work and enjoy my daughter and that will kind of hopefully fill my cup." Maybe the kid was the thing missing in my picture. And it worked for a little bit, but still I felt frustrated, I felt like there was things that I wasn't being seen or valued for.

And as I continued because I didn't know what else to do, I realized, I noticed I was getting angry, I was yelling at my child. There was so much tension and I started to cry of exhaustion and despair in our bathroom almost every other day. I didn't know what else to do. I kept thinking and saying, "I'm at the end of my rope. I don't know what else to do. I'm afraid that if I stop, I'll crash and I won't be able to pick myself up again and things will fall apart and I have to stay in that race constantly, but it's exhausting. I can't take it anymore."

And it went on for a while until I had a conversation with my husband and I was saying, "I know I was bringing some steady income and all the benefits from being in corporate" and he's self-employed. "But could we afford for me to just step out?" Because outside of changing the job, I felt like I had tried everything else. So I left my job without anything else and within two months I was barely feeling any better. So I had to admit that it wasn't the job and it was something else. And I started a quest into understanding myself better. And that's when I stumbled across the School of Self-Image through the Live Like an Editor workshop.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah. Well, before we get to that, I want to understand one of the statements that you made is that you were living life by default. What did that look like for you? Because I think so many of us can relate to that, like we just do what's expected. We wake up thinking the same thoughts, feeling the same ways. What was your version of living life by default?

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

The way I think about it now is I felt I was reacting to things. There was no proactiveness. This is what I would want in my life. In fact, I didn't know really. And I was very tactical on I want more money or I want to travel more. But it remained very short-term and very tactical. And so life happened to me and this happened and I have to react to it and also completely thinking and living my life based on the belief that I grew up in and with.

And so my mother, for example, was a very successful woman, but I think she was pretty much operating from a very masculine energy that didn't really work for her. She didn't take care of herself, she had very low self-esteem and very low self-image, she never wore makeup, she had no skincare routine. She was just going to work to make money and come home and put food on the table and on repeat all the time. There was no destination or not even a path forward other than go through life and hopefully retire with enough money to just finally enjoy. And I remember thinking, and I actually posted on Facebook years ago, "I was surviving my week to leave my weekend," and it felt like this loop, this hamster wheel constantly.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah, I think so many people can relate to that. And it's really interesting. You thought, well, maybe it's the job, you leave your job and you find weeks later I still feel the same. Not much has changed. And then you found Live Like an Editor, which is often how a lot of women actually find my work. And what was it about that workshop that shifted your perspective, that shifted maybe what's possible for you, that started to put you on this completely new trajectory?

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Well, there's different layers. The first is the type of question you ask and the type of reflections that you encourage were things that I had never really done or not very formally. You ask yourself, "Oh, what would I be or what would I do if?" But it just kind of stays in your mind versus actually sitting down and taking the time to ask myself certain questions and go deeper. At a very surface level, just that was huge.

To me, one of the biggest shifts that has been with the workshop and throughout the membership has been you embody how to actually address my objections. Every time you would say something, "Oh, you could live like this" and my mind would serve me something very limited. Well of course you can. You have that much money and you're beautiful. And typically right after, you would bring a story about you or about someone else saying, "This is a type of thing that is possible." And all of a sudden I was like, okay, you just addressed kind of the thing that was coming up to mind and I cannot have that thought because you just showed me, proved me wrong. And so constantly, even if at first it still felt unreal, it felt like, sounds lovely.

Tonya Leigh:

For you. I get this all the time-

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

... It's easy for you. I don't know how I'd do that.

Tonya Leigh:

That's easy for you to say, Tonya. I'm like, "Do you all realize that I have lived through probably every objection that you have to what I'm saying right now?" That's how I can anticipate where your brain's going to take you. And those objections are actually what is standing between where you are and where you want to be. And so the fact that you are willing to allow possibility into your life, even with the objections and be curious about them because that's one of the big tools that we teach in the membership is being curious. Why do I think that way? Where did that come from? What is the cost that this belief is costing me?

And so you join Live Like an Editor, and then you join the membership and your life is so different now. It's very different. And so we have a picture of the before, burnt out, looking for the solution outside of yourself, which is basically what you were doing. And then what were the key moments on your journey that really woke you up to, it's actually all within me. I get to decide without anything changing around me. Do you remember what those key moments were for you?

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

In the process, I became a coach and actually I found a coach for burnout, women professional. And that's how I started to understand that there was something else to look into, which was me. And as I was being coached, I had two columns in my notebook. I had the column for me and the column to help others. So I was like, "Oh, this input is going to be helpful for my ex-colleague, Anna, who was struggling with this." And I kept doing this until I actually said it to the coach who was only on the phone. I was like, "I keep doing this. Can I do something so that I can help my ex-colleagues and friends?" And so I became a coach and through the certification, which was essentially not my goal, I didn't want to be a coach, I just wanted to learn the tools and help friends, I discovered this passion and this purpose.

But through certification was something very clear from all of the master coach saying, "You want to find other coaches, you want to be around other coaches, you want to have your own coach." And that's how I joined the membership as well. I was like, it makes sense because then I will have a new perspective from a professional coach that I admire and so understanding that, that "Oh, there's actually something that I haven't looked into much." And then having a coach constantly reflecting back, and sometimes I sat in group coaching calls with you where I don't submit a topic, but everything you say I'm like, "Ooh, that's for me. Ooh, I need to reflect this way."

And so it became a habit of constantly looking inward to the point where now when I feel just a tiny bit tense with my daughter, she's five and she can have tantrums, the old me would've been lashing out or kind of blaming her. And now I'm like, "Okay, let's take a scan here. Have you slept well? Do you feel stressed?" I go back to me and often I feel, yep, you didn't sleep early last night. You know that. So here you are. And so taking responsibility and understanding the correlation between me, my self-care, my mental health, my physical health and how I behave in the world and how that impacts others now is automatic. The moment there's tension, I'm like, okay, what's what's going on inside that is causing me to behave this way? Nothing like that would've been able ... I would not have been able to do that when I started on that journey.

Tonya Leigh:

That is so interesting that you're bringing this up right now because right before we got on this call, I was in the kitchen and I was feeling some anxiety and Fonz came in there and he's like, "Well, maybe you should do this and maybe you should do that." I was like, "No, it's me. It's me. It's not anything outside of me right now. It's me." For me, it is the best news ever. Whereas the old me, just like you, I would want to find fault, I'd want to blame this person, but knowing that I'm the one creating it is how you get your power back. It's like, okay, if it's me, then let me go in and see what I'm thinking. Where am I focused right now? Did I sleep last night? Do I need to eat?

But knowing that I'm in control of my emotional state of being is the most liberating news ever because the old me, very much like probably the before you was just always reacting, trying to change the world in order to feel better. And it's just a recipe for misery because the world's going to be what it is. The five-year-old daughter, she's going to have temper tantrums. The job is going to be the job. But when you realize that all of your power is within you, it's the most liberating way to live in this world. And to me that's what it means to be the editor in chief of your life. It first starts by acknowledging that I am in charge of my own experience. So I'm curious, when you went through Live Like an Editor, when you walked away from that workshop, what did you take away for you in terms of what it means to be an editor of your life?

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Especially the first year finding that one word that was so challenging. I kept looking at the surface. I remember vividly I was on Canva and I was trying to put that picture together and that title and I was like, "Okay, I want to mix a color with ..." I was trying to find, create a word, but it wasn't the task. It wasn't what was going to help me. And eventually you said to me, "You need to pick one word and you don't change it." And this is how through the Facebook group, I remember having a lot of feedback from the team and from the members and I landed on bold. And to me, just going through that exercise the first time was a journey of discovery, of like, oh my God, I'm so surface level. It's such a challenging thing to just go inwards and really find that word that I want to embody.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

And the thing that is with me every day since is asking myself the question, how would bold me, how would worthy me, how would discipline me, which has been my word over the years, would behave right now or would do right now? How would she think? And having that gives me a compass. It makes decision making so much easier because there's no true answer, or if there is, they're in the same realm. It just reduces the amount of overwhelm around like, oh my God, this is happening. I'm like, yeah, I'm bold, so that's what I do. Or I'm worthy. That's what I do. And to me, that's really the habit that I've kept all along and that's been really transformative.

Tonya Leigh:

What's your word for this year?

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Expensive. I initially chose stretched because one thing you talk a lot about is we live inside within the edge of our self-image. And I started to play at the end of the year of really stepping out of my comfort zone and seeing what happened and magic happened. And I was like, okay, it felt so scary to step out, but the rewards were amazing. So I chose stretched, but then there was some negative connotation with stretched, so it went to expansive as a way to just really step out of my comfort zone and explore the exciting unknown.

Tonya Leigh:

So good. And even as you journey throughout your year and your faced with these decisions, like the expansive version of you will answer very different than the default version of you.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

I love that you use that as your guiding question throughout the year because it just gives you so much clarity in those moments where maybe you are hitting up against an obstacle, you're stressed, you're anxious, you're like, "Wait, what would the most expansive version of me think right now? What would she be doing? How would she be showing up?" And it just gives you instant clarity of how to shift your energy in those moments. That's beautiful.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes. And I also, in my experience, sometimes I don't even answer the question, but asking the question, changing something in how I feel and how I think, and it also becomes so automatic that sometimes it's the opposite. The question doesn't even arise and I'm like, yep, and I'm going to act this way because that's who I am, and that's towards this version of me that is being birthed right now. And so that's how we're going to do it. But it kind of subconsciously feels like it's always there and without effort. Even earlier, now, it's definitely feels a lot more automatic. And if I may, one thing that comes up often is what would Tonya do? Because throughout the years you share stories, some of them have really stayed in my mind and you kind of give me permission because you've share your experience so much over the years. It tells me that it's okay, it's okay to have certain standards, it's okay to ask for certain things, it's okay to behave such a way. And that was also something that throughout my exposure to all your work has been extremely helpful.

Tonya Leigh:

Oh, I'm so glad. I learn through stories so I think that's why I often tell stories because if I can see possibility in someone else through a story versus them just telling me theory, I'm much more likely to be able to relate and apply it to my life. So I'm so glad that my stories help. In the membership, I am pretty much a blank canvas or not blank canvas, an open book. That's the term I'm looking for because I think all too often we only see the highlights of people's lives and we don't realize what they had to go through to get there. We don't realize the challenges. And so I often share those just so you know when you're going through those challenges, I often tell you all, "Nothing's gone wrong here. This is just part of the journey. This is the way it's supposed to unfold."

And watching women just overcome challenge after challenge just by shifting their mindset is what I live to do. It's one of my most fun things, and that's what I've seen you do. When I think about your life now, in fact, why don't you paint all that you've accomplished from doing this work? So we went from 2021, burnt out, leaving a corporate job, new mom, still burnt out even after leaving your job to now you've accomplished so much. Well, you started two businesses?

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

Published a book. What else have you done?

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

I am also supporting my husband who has two photography studios and I'm raising an amazing child. I'm much more present for her. Yeah, it's a lot, just that.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah. So what would you say are your three biggest shifts that you made that helped you to get from that before to that after?

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Definitely looking for solutions in me, as you were saying. And I think part of that journey is painful.

Tonya Leigh:

Say more.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Because for so long I have lived oblivious to the power that I held over my life and circumstances. And when all of a sudden you actually realize that you had so much more control than you thought, and now it's time to unpack all of the things that didn't go right or well or good, and look at it from a perspective of maybe there was some part of responsibility. And it's not as if we're blaming, but looking back, historically, I'm not for ruminating on problems, but I like to look at the problem from back then and to avoid it and really analyze what went wrong in a way or what did I do that landed me where I had been. And that could be cathartic at times, and think that it's something that gets in the way. I see some people who are aware that that might happen and they don't even start the journey by fear of surfacing old wounds and realizing that if I had known what I know now, things could have been completely different. But I'm always looking forward, this has been always kind of my nature.

So I went through and I'm still going because every time you unpack something, another layer eventually appears and there's always something else to just examine. But definitely that. Definitely understanding how much control, power did I have over my life and circumstances.

I think the other thing that really landed super powerfully for me when really when I started joining the membership and kind of understood the three core principle that you teach around mindset, around surroundings and style, the surrounding part was still new to me. Understanding the importance of who you surround yourself with, but also where? I think a lot to this day, I've consumed so much content around personal development and other coaches, and everyone talks a lot about the people you surround yourself with, which is so important and I realize it now. But you're one of the few, if the only one that I really hear talk about the space, the place you put yourself into. And so to me, I had a light bulb moment of like, whoa, really? And now it's having an audit of the people that I surround myself with is also something very routine. I notice when I'm in an interaction that that doesn't feel right or that drains me of energy and I know to be like, okay, that was lovely and I'm going to go, versus in the past I would've people pleased and stayed there and entertained-

Tonya Leigh:

Work on your thoughts about that person. Yeah.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

Listen, and you've probably heard me say this. I'm like, "Yes, I know it's my thoughts creating how I feel right now around this person. But quite honestly, I would rather be using my thinking to work on other problems than to try to feel a certain way around this person."

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

It is our choice, and there are certain people that we choose to be around that may be challenging, but we like our reason for choosing to be around them. I'm like, "Okay, on those certain examples, I will work on my thoughts," but if it's just someone I've been placed in a room with that it's just not a match. Nothing wrong with them, nothing wrong with me. I'm like you. I'm like, "I'm just going to remove myself from this interaction and bless you. I hope you go well. But this just isn't aligned." And that's one of the things that we do talk a lot about in the membership is the power of surroundings. And as you said, it's just not the people that you hang out with. It's everything that's around you.

It's the books on your bookshelf, it's the music you listen to, it's the clutter or not clutter depending on how you keep your home. All of it is sending a message to you about who you think you are. And so one of the things that as you know we do is we work on being very mindful of the places and spaces and things that we surround ourselves with. How did you apply that to your life? What did you notice that you started doing as it relates to your surroundings that had a big impact on your self-image?

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Really this audit. I knew about it and I used this knowledge not very specifically or very intentionally over the years. But two years ago I read a book on the beach who had this exercise and you had to write down the five people you spend the most time with. And I took a piece of paper out and I started to write names. It was hard to find five people. So that was my first insight, I was like, "Whoa, Caroline, you isolated yourself so much through working for yourself over the years that it's challenging to find five people." That's a big red flag here.

And then when I really had to be honest with the time, then I had a client as the fifth person on this piece of paper, and it was not necessarily the most energizing client either. And I remember looking at this piece of paper and thinking, this needs to change. And I'm sure energetically something changed. I didn't feel like I worked intentionally towards upgrading my surrounding, but within three months, three or four complete random, magical, unexpected encounters happened. And those powerful typically inaccessible mentors showed up in my life. And I was like, wow. Immediately I was like, "That's what I thought about on the beach. And here it is."

And now, for example, I have completely curated my Instagram following. I don't go on Instagram very often, but I've removed any account that doesn't sit right with me or doesn't feel aligned with the person I want to be. Back to what you were saying, I think I gave myself permission to walk away from a conversation or a group that doesn't feel energizing with love. But to the point you're making, it's not for me. And I think it's also very linked to listening to my intuition. I feel like I recognize, I always had a very strong intuition about the people that were a match for me versus not. But I used to not listen to it and try to rationalize my way through, well, maybe you should stay or find myself a reason.

But now even if it doesn't make sense, it's like it doesn't sit right, I'm just going to walk away. Really limiting the core circle around me. And even at times as everyone, sometimes my spouse could be an amazing source of energy and sometimes could be very stressed and I just learned how to not absorb too much or find the right dose when there's a lot of stress on his end that I don't want to absorb, or I will support but know how to take my distance when things like that happen. So now it's really automatic. Instantly I'm like, not helpful so I step out.

Tonya Leigh:

I think you made such a good point though, because it's not just leaving certain places. It's also when you start to embody a different energy, also the surrounding starts to surround you. Whatever you're embodying, you begin to look for it, call it in. And so that's why I love the work that we do because it's not just inner work, it's working with the external to prove to yourself this is who I'm becoming, but also as you're becoming the world around you begins to change as well. Just like you calling in these mentors.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

That was a direct reflection of who you were becoming.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes. And I think also it's so powerful that you're saying this because my husband hasn't done any coaching or any therapy over the past few years where I went through my own transformation, and there was times where I wondered, is this going to last? Because I'm becoming someone so different and he's not in a way, he's not doing the same type of work. And at the time there was so many examples around me of people who had gone through that journey and divorced and found a new partner, and typically they're both coaches or both in the same kind of personal development area, and I just didn't want that to last. And the magic is he is a different person. He kind of matched how I was going. Now I hear him sometimes have conversation with friends and he used my lines or my way of thinking of like, "Wait, who are you?"

It is not just for me. The relationship I have with my daughter is completely transformed through that work. The moment I realized I really needed help was this moment where she didn't want to leave the playground. We really had to go. I had to force her into the car seat and she was fighting me and I buckled her, went in the car, closed the door and yelled out of my lungs, which is not me. And I was like, I can't. I can't continue like this. And now she can have a much bigger tantrum, and I check in with myself and I'm like, all good. "What's going on honey?" I can really just really ease her tantrum just by being so much more aware of myself and having done so much work and being able to observe her thoughts and mine, or her behavior and my thoughts and be like, "Oh, okay, well, she must be tired." Where in the past it would've been like blow up.

Tonya Leigh:

I feel like every mom's been through that until we learn these tools. I know I was. My poor daughter when she was young, I bet she thinks now, "I wish mom would've had these tools when I was five or six." But I also believe we learn them when we're supposed to and thank goodness that we have learned these tools because I think one of the biggest gifts of doing this work is the impact that it has on the people around you.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes. Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

I get to see this every day. I get emails from husbands, I get emails from partners. I even got an email from someone's child just saying, "Thank you so much. Everything's different." And all it takes is one person changing to really affect the dynamic of the entire home. It's the ripple effect. It's the butterfly effect that happens when you do this work. So we talked about surroundings. I'm curious about your style. How does that impact your journey?

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

To me, that would be the third-biggest change. It is also something that I have not heard anywhere outside of the School of self-image and to this day, no matter how many tools and I know about upgrading my energy and my state of being. In times of challenges, and when I feel like, okay, I know I should be doing this, and I try, sometimes I feel overwhelmed and I try a meditation, breathing exercise, try to write my ... I try everything and it's not working as good. I was like, okay, let me go in my closet, let me do something-

Tonya Leigh:

Let me go put on an outfit.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

And it just changed so much because all of a sudden it really changes something in my physiology. I feel like, okay, I have to be really precise with makeup and that typically is my go-to. Whenever I try a few things and it doesn't work, again, let me change my look. Let me just put the best outfit I can together and be that person.

Tonya Leigh:

Okay. What do you think is going on there? What do you think when you do that, and you've tried meditation, you've tried journaling, whatever you try and you go and put on an outfit. Let's think about this. What do you think is happening?

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

I think two things. One is my ... It's a little bit of a distraction from ruminating the thing. All of a sudden, I am not going to go and just pick something randomly. I have to look and decide. So that a little calmer and a distraction to my mind racing. And really I think it all goes back to me, how can I look and feel beautiful and in my power? And all of a sudden I suspect my subconscious mind catches up and be like-

Tonya Leigh:

This is what we're doing today.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

So it's like a pattern interrupt because you've got to go pick out an outfit. So you're interrupting that pattern and it's also you telling your brain what to think by what you are physically wearing.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

So good.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

I'm telling you. I mean now, but this is why I'm such a big advocate for style, and I think sometimes people think, "Oh, she's going to tell us to wear designer clothes." It's not that at all. It's you being intentional and choosing things to help you embody the energy that you want to embody. That's all it is.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

You're telling your story on purpose.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

So good.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes, you're being in control.

Tonya Leigh:

What about your belief now that anything is possible? Tell us about that.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

I'll be honest, I can still feel the resistance at times when I think about bigger goals that still feel far, but to the point that we were making, now I know it's just my mind talking and it's not me, and it's just really then bringing a different energy within my thought. Be like, okay, I hear what you're thinking and this is not how we're going to go. And now it feels possible. And at the same time, on the day to day, the progress is small. It's small incremental steps. It's just really looking back that I see, wow, I'm doing this now when just a year ago I would never thought I could do all of this and feeling calm and not stressed out.

So it's a combination of trusting yourself that these little steps on a daily basis are going to get you to where you want to go, even though if you look at just a day, it doesn't feel like that. But also for me, I think the awareness of the thoughts that would come in my way and be like, okay, I hear you and I know you're doing this for my best interest for survival, and we are not going to go this way. And slowly bringing that on board. So now the pattern interrupt is a lot faster over time than it used to be for sure.

Tonya Leigh:

But you said something that's so key. I actually did an Instagram Reel yesterday talking about this very thing because I did this really cool exercise where I went back to my early 20s and I started to document milestones throughout the years. And it was about 15 years ago where I could see on paper that I was having exponential growth year after year. And I was like, "Oh, that's so interesting. What shifted in me? What were the big shifts that allowed me to go from years of very little growth or some years it felt like a setback to year after year of having big growth?" And I boiled it down to number one, that was around the time that I stopped trying to fix myself because it seemed like every year it was like, "Okay, I got to fix my body. I got to fix my bank account." It was like I'm such a huge problem that needed to be fixed, and I switched from fixing to I get to create. I get to create myself. It's a very different energy.

But the other thing that I noticed around that time, and it goes to what you were saying, that's when I started to focus on the little tiny habits, the little tiny shifts because I think so often we get so caught up in the big picture and I love a big goal, but we focus on that and feel the lack of being there, we feel the enormity of what it's going to take to get there, and it often just slows us down versus about 15 years ago is when I just started focusing on the daily process. Because I always say a well-lived life is nothing more than a collection of well-lived days. And so I really just started to focus on my daily life and it compounds over time as you were saying.

It's like you look back after a year and you're like, wow, in the moment I didn't realize taking a deep breath and not reacting to my daughter was a big deal. But 365 days of that, you've completely birthed a whole new you. So I love that you brought up the power of these tiny daily shifts because I don't think women realize how enormous they are. They don't give themselves enough credit for these little tiny things that they're doing that with consistency and over time is going to add up.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes. I couldn't agree more. At the time, I was looking for a big massive solution, something that I had missed for some reason, and it was going to come in and change everything. And I agree over time, I've just picked little habits, they feel so trivial, and yet I have witnessed, faster than I anticipated actually, the shift. There's two of them that come to mind. One is practicing gratitude. And at first I was journaling gratitude every day, and I did it for a very long time. And I realized that one of the things that I want to do is role model for my daughter, and she cannot see that I'm journaling on gratitude every day, especially every night because she's in bed.

And so I started thinking, okay, how can I model that? And the way I do it is I just express gratitude out loud whenever happens on small things, having all green lights on the way to school when we are late, finding the perfect parking spot on a busy day. And I do it out loud to the point where now she does it too. She's like, "Oh, we should thank universe for that." Great. And these little things really change something. I started to pay attention to all the little thing I could be grateful for so that I could say it out loud and model for her. But it changes something for me too. I don't pay as much attention to what's not working.

Tonya Leigh:

But think about the generational impact of that. She grows up and one day if she has kids, it's just what she does, and then she passes that along. That's huge. In the moment, you're just doing gratitude. Now you're teaching her to do gratitude that she's going to share with her family. It's so beautiful when you think about, again, the ripple effect that this work has.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

That was one. What was the other one?

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

The other one was also related to her. It actually came for one of the realizations that I am still unpacking right now is I realized that even as I moved into coaching, I was still trying to embody a version of me that would be accepted by corporate. And I honestly thought it was my authentic self, that I loved the business and the money and not the money, I like the money, I do, but I really like thinking about financial planning. And I read books about money. It's really something that energizes me. Now I realize that it's probably an inherited belief from the way my mother was living and not my natural essence. And one of the work that I've been doing is to start having I am statements towards the version I want to be. So obviously I have my word of the year, but it'd sometimes be, I am beautiful, something which would've cost me to say a couple of years ago. I am worthy, I am strong, I'm smart, I'm capable.

And I made this a practice to repeat those statements to me in the morning, in the evening, and whenever there's empty space. So I walk in the kitchen to grab a snack, I think about my I am statements, and I saw the shift in me within a couple of weeks of really all of a sudden standing more straight and having clarity on certain things at work and how I show up in conversations. And so I started a routine with our daughter where at bedtime we do what we call haka, which is this New Zealand dance that the rugby men do before the game. And we do something a little similar, a little more gracious because she's a ballerina, but with repeating statements and she knows them by heart. And often she's like, "Oh, we need to add, I am healthy in our haka." I say sure. And so we do that at bedtime. So that-

Tonya Leigh:

I love this so much. I feel like you should record this and share it with the membership so we can all do it at night. That is so awesome.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes. Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

Gosh, that's so great. Yeah, it's the little habits. For me, even just making my bed every morning. It takes no time, but it's about what it represents. It's like this is how I want to start my day now. Every time I walk past my bed, it is sending a message to my brain of I am a woman who takes the time to make her bed. I'm a woman who keeps her home organized. It's a little habit that says so much, but in the morning when I'm making my bed, it doesn't seem like it's that big of a deal. But these habits, as you know, they add up.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes. Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah. So what would you say to a woman who may be where you are, were, feeling burnt out, knowing she wants more, but she just feels stuck, she doesn't know what to do? What advice would you give her? Where should she start?

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

The biggest lesson I've learned of burnout is isolation. We isolate ourselves. And over the years I've seen or heard at least two type of stories. One being, "Well, I'm the only one struggling with this. I want to be normal. I want to be like everybody else. But I feel ashamed to admit that I'm not in a good place, so I'm just not going to talk about it and I'm going to put a mask on," which I used to do, pretending everything was amazing, but deep inside I knew I wasn't good.

And so there's either that or the other story that I hear sometimes is like, "Well, everybody struggled with this, so if there was a solution, we'd know about it. So why even bother?" And so we don't really surround ourselves with people who are going to be conducive to our wellbeing and our growth. And so to me, the moment I joined the membership, then all of a sudden, even passively, even just sitting and listening to others or going on the Facebook group and reading the story of others, all of a sudden you're like, "Okay, I'm not alone, nothing has gone wrong, and there's reasons behind why I feel this way, like this other person. And their solutions. There are things that I can do that are within my control." But until you open up, then you're going to stay stuck.

So my primary piece of advice would be surround yourself with people who are going to be supportive and want you to grow. So one, and the other one, part of this is having a role model. To me, there's a story that you shared about, this is my recollection, and maybe it's not exactly accurate, but where you had made a reservation for a specific table at a restaurant, and when you arrived, the table wasn't available and the waitress was offering a different table. And the old me and the old you would probably would've said, "Yes, sure, okay, I'll take it," being kind of frustrated, but just taking it.

But like, "No, I want this table. I made a reservation for this table. I want this table." And to me, having that role model, it's okay to stand up for what you want. It's fair. You asked for something and you're not getting it. But the education I've received as a girl, you don't make waves and you compromise and you make yourself small and just go with the flow made me, at first when I heard you just say the story, I was like, I don't know that I could actually say, "No, no, no, that's not working. I want the table." And now I'm like, yes, now I see it. I was like, did you just try to walk on my feet right now? That's not going to happen. I'm sorry.

But having the example and the role model just gave me permission. And so I think having that, having someone you look up to and constantly ask yourself, what would that person do the way I think of you often, what would Tonya do? What would Tonya say? And have that, just to not commiserate on what's wrong in your life without ever having a solution.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah, I call those slipstreams. I think if we look back over our lives, we can all identify someone that inspired us and helped us get to where we wanted to go much faster than we could have done on our own. And it's like finding your slipstream, I think is so important. Finding someone who's done this work, who understands it, because now you're a slipstream for people. It's like we all just slip together.

But I see so many women, as you're saying, they try to do it alone. There might be shame in them admitting, "I'm burnt out," or "I shouldn't be feeling this way. My life is so good. How dare I complain that I'm exhausted? Just pick myself up, put on a happy face, and let's pretend that everything is okay." And when you live your life in a silo like that, you are unable to get in that slipstream and the energy that's going to carry you further. So I love what you said. I think for all of us, it's about admitting to ourselves the truth of what is being honest with yourself and with the people around you of like, hey, this is what's going on for me right now. And not doing it in a complaining way, but doing it in a way so that you can put it out there so you can then begin to work on solutions to get you out of it.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes. Yes. And I think putting it out in words also, I feel like I was rehearsing these thoughts in my head and not really putting them out. I would say them out loud, but to myself. "I'm at the end of my rope" was something I would say, but never to my husband. Or it was in the bathroom when I was on my own. And I think being able to just put them out in the world, just that sometimes make you realize, whoa, that's what I think. And sometimes just that and talking to someone will have a reaction.

Actually the day before I resigned, there was a friend of my husband at home that I didn't know, and I started to talk about what was going on and I was debating whether I should stay or go. And he was like, "With all due respect, Caroline, I don't know you, but you make no sense right now." And for me, I was like, that's not me. I make sense. So if I'm at the point where this very kind gentleman who's been so kind to listen to my story for five minutes, tell me that makes no sense, it's like something needs to happen now. And that's how I actually literally made the decision on the spot that the next morning I would resign without anything else lined up because just one conversation with a stranger essentially. But putting it out and having someone reflect back to me helped tremendously.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah. Having those sounding boards for our own brains is so important because we have blind spots. We can't see because it feels so true to us. We feel like this is reality. This is the way the world is, this is who I am. But when you can have someone reflect back to you, "Do you see what you're saying to yourself? Do you see how this is impacting your life? Do you see how you just keep creating the same evidence for this?" All of a sudden it's like, "Oh, I never even saw that this was subconsciously running my life. It's so powerful." Whether it's a kind man who sits down with you for five minutes, or it's a coach or a mentor, it's really important for us to have in order to grow and expand because we all have our edges.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes. And I think one last thing that I would add is repetition because I think at least in my case, I was repeating these negative thoughts all the time and it kind of take someone else to repeat and repeat and repeat another way of thinking until you actually integrate the fact that maybe that's true. And I think one of my first thoughts when I joined the membership is like, "Oh, I've heard this story before. Oh, I've heard this concept before. Oh, this month's theme seems familiar to something I did before."

And yet it is so important to return old episodes, old topics, or just because even if you were to say exactly the same thing, which sometimes you do, it hits home so much differently as you grow and discover yourself and go down this journey. And it does make such a profound impact because all of a sudden this is something that creates your environment. Living your life by default, and then deciding to do it on purpose is something that you repeat so much that I know, I was like, "Yeah, am I living by default? Am I living on purpose?" It's so powerful. And sometimes my old brain will be like, "Okay, well, we're repeating ourselves here." And I'm like, "Yeah, I need the repetition."

Tonya Leigh:

You have to do those reps to build the muscle.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

You really do.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

I had a woman reach out to me the other day, and she's been in the membership for three years. She was like, "Oh my God. It finally clicked." And I'm like, "It always does when it's supposed to. There is no hurry. I trust that it's going to click at the exact moment it's meant to." So I love that. Repetition is key.

Well, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your journey. I'm sure there are so many women listening who can relate to where you've been and are full of hope and inspiration that they can get to where you are now, which when you think about where you are now and let's end with this. It's not so much about what you've created. I feel like that is just a product of something so much more powerful. When you think about where you are now, what is that? If you had to say the three energies that you embody almost all the time now as a part of doing this work, what would you say that is? This allows you to create these results?

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Calm. I would say faith. I think it's faith in the fact that things will happen, but also to trust in myself. To me, these kind of feel the ingredients to where I'm at right now, which I used to say, "I don't do rush anymore. I don't rush." And I know that the counterintuitive truth is whenever things happen and there's so much on our plate, we want to just race towards it. And the truth is actually to pause, creating calm so that then you can race. But it feels so counterintuitive. And the habit is always like, "I'm going to race." And "No, no, no, no. Take a breather." And so to me, returning to calm so that I can actually listen to my intuition, but then I deeply believe that what I want is just waiting for me. And it is just, I know it always feels very simple, not necessarily easy, but it is just a way of me going on the world, being my true self, trusting myself and things will happen.

Tonya Leigh:

There is no hurry. My favorite mantra. Thank you so much, Caroline.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Thank you, Tonya.

Tonya Leigh:

Awesome. And listen you all, if you have not joined Live Like an Editor, we are starting really soon. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/editor. We are going to have such a good time over those five days, and I hope you're going to do it with us again this year. Take care.

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Listen to the Full Episode:Live Like an Editor: Transforming Your Life with Vision and Creativity

In the journey of personal development, one of the most transformative shifts you can make is to curate your life by focusing on potential rather than flaws. This perspective not only empowers you but also allows you to see the beauty and possibilities in your current circumstances. Here’s how you can implement this mindset in your life.

Tonya Leigh invites listeners to reimagine their lives through a designer's lens. Inspired by the idea of viewing life as a fixer-upper, she encourages embracing one's potential rather than focusing on flaws. Tonya shares her recent experiences, including a snowy morning and a revitalizing Pilates class, setting a positive tone for the discussion. She also announces her beloved annual workshop, "Live Like an Editor," a transformative five-day experience designed to help participants gain a fresh perspective on their lives. This workshop emphasizes creativity, possibility, and joy, rather than fixing perceived flaws, empowering women to curate their lives with intention. Tune in to discover how to approach personal development with style and creativity!

Episode Details:00:39 - Morning Routine and Excitement

01:22 - Live Like an Editor Workshop

02:05 - Possibility, Creativity, and Joy

04:24 - Curate Your Life Like a Designer

05:05 - Perspective Shift: See Potential, Not Flaws

07:10 - Thoughtfully Select and Organize

07:54 - Transform Possibilities into Reality

11:09 - Create a Vision and Anchor It

14:00 -Work with What You Have

17:48 - Focus Room by Room

21:10 - Cultivate a Figure-Outable Mindset

26:11 - Perspectives to Curate Your Life

Connect with Master Life Coach Tonya Leigh:

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Click HERE to subscribe to our YouTube channel DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:Have you ever looked at your life and felt overwhelmed by all of the things you wish you could change? What if instead of seeing the flaws, you started seeing the potential, just like a designer walking into a fixer-upper? Today we're exploring how to curate your life like a designer, focusing on vision, creativity, and making the most of what you already have. Are you ready? All right, let's do this. Let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello, hello, my friends. How are you feeling on this beautiful day? I woke up this morning and there was snow on the ground, which is not something we see that often in Charlotte. And then I went and had a Pilates class. I came home and had a cup of coffee, and now I'm recording this episode for you. I'm feeling really good and really excited because I have something that I have been dying to share with you. And it's something that many of you have reached out and said, "Are we doing it this year? I've been looking for it. When are you going to announce it?"

Well, the time is now. Our most beloved workshop is happening really, really soon. I only run this workshop one time a year. Year after year, women tell me that this workshop sets them up to have amazing years. It is called Live like an Editor. It is five days of you looking at your life and yourself from a completely different perspective. This is not a workshop where you're going to come in and fix yourself. That's not what we're doing around here because you're not broken. We are going to be looking at you and your life through the lens of possibility and creativity and joy and fun. It's just a remarkable five days together.

I've had women who have done this workshop now. I think the first time we ran it was in 2021. They do this workshop every single year, and they tell me, "This workshop sets me up for the year." And I personally love doing it because it is how I think about designing my life. It's how I think about creating. It is all about looking at your life through the lens of you being the editor-in-chief of your life. You're going to be looking at your life as if you were creating it like a magazine, figuring out the essence, figuring out your brand and how you want to show up in the world, looking at how to rewrite your stories. It is so fun and so unique. There's nothing else out there like this workshop.

And when you join, you are also going to get access to my private editor's notes. These are eight practices that have elevated my life. I've been studying myself for many, many years, and I have been tweaking and experimenting and playing with what works and what doesn't. So I've drilled it down to eight practices that I'm going to be sharing with you. And here's the best news: It is only $37. I've had women say, "You should be charging 500 for this workshop," but I want to make this accessible to as many women who feel called to do this more creative, expansive work that is about possibility, not limitation. So if you want to join us, and I highly recommend that you do because we are going to have a good time, just go to schoolofselfimage.com/editor, and I will see you in the workshop.

Now, if you're wondering if this workshop is a good fit for you, I want to just let you know that if you resonate with today's episode, you are going to love the energy and the process that I teach within the Live Like an Editor workshop because today we're talking about how to curate your life like a designer. Now, I want to pull out two words that I just mentioned and look at how it applies to your life. Because many times we look at our lives through the lens of we need to fix problems. Of course, life is always giving us problems and challenges, and I think they're there for a reason, they're there for to grow us. But when you look at your life through the lens of problems, you're going to see a lot of problems because what you focus on grows.

When you curate your life like a designer, you look at possibility, you look at taking what you have and expanding upon it. A great example of this is, Fonz and I are remodeling an older home right now. I remember the first time we walked into it, where a lot of people may have seen the limitations of this house, be it the size, the old decor, the flooring that dates back to the '70s, the windows that need replacing. There's a lot of things that you could look at this house and think, "Ugh, this is just one big problem. I'm so limited in what I can do with this house." I saw so many possibilities. I was able to have a vision for this house that transcended what I was currently seeing. And that is what a designer does. A designer takes what is currently present and looks at all of the ways that she or he can expand upon it, and lift it up, elevate it, make it into something extraordinary.

So when I talk about curating your life like a designer, I want us to talk about first of all the word curate. It means to thoughtfully select, organize, and refine the elements of your life to create an experience that aligns with your values, your vision, and your desires. Curating your life means being intentional about what you allow in, whether it's people, habits or environments, and crafting a life that's beautiful and meaningful to you, one that's uniquely yours. Then we look at the word designer. A designer is a creator who envisions and shapes the future by transforming possibilities into reality. So in life, being a designer means seeing potential where others see limitations. It's about using creativity to solve problems and intentionally crafting a life that reflects your personal style, your values, and your goals and dreams.

So I want to share five specific perspectives that you need to have in order to curate your life like a designer. Some of these may be very challenging for you because it's a completely different way of you seeing yourself in the world, but I will tell you, it is a much more fun and much more effective way to create your life on purpose. So the first thing that you have to do if you want to curate your life like a designer is that you need to see the potential, not the flaws. This means you shifting your perspective to focus on what's working instead of dwelling on imperfections. Think about it. A designer sees an outdated kitchen not as a failure, but as an opportunity to highlight its original charm, whether it's tiles or maybe it's the spacious layout, maybe it's how the window is positioned in the room. A designer's always looking at what is working in this space and how can we build upon it?

Similarly, you can look at your life in the same way. Are there areas where you're overly critical, where it's never good enough, where you hold yourself back? What if you started with identifying what's good about this area of my life? In fact, here's an idea for you. I want you to take a moment and assess one area of your life. It could be your career, it could be your relationships, it could be your health, finances, and write down three things that are the bones of that area or the strengths. I want you to focus on enhancing those rather than you telling yourself, "I got to start from scratch." Because I think that's why change is often so overwhelming, is that we tell ourselves that we're too far gone. "I got to start from scratch. It's going to take too long." We psych ourselves out of just expanding upon the potential.

Let's say that you're feeling really unhappy with your health. Maybe you've gained some weight, you feel tired all the time, or you haven't been sticking to your workout routine. It's really easy to dwell on what's not working and feel stuck, but I want to encourage you to shift your perspective to focus on what is working or what you can build upon. So for example, instead of dwelling on how you haven't shown up for your workouts and what a failure you think you are, just stop and let's look for the potential here.

Let's not give the energy to your flaws, but let's look at what is working or what you would like to build upon. So you could ask yourself, do you enjoy certain activities? Do you like walking? Maybe you like dancing in your living room, maybe you like doing yoga. You can begin to ask yourself, are there certain times of the day where you feel more energized and motivated? You can look into the past to look at how perhaps you have successfully implemented new healthy habits before, like drinking more water or cutting back on sugar, to use it as evidence of like, "Oh, I can do this. There's potential here." This kind of focus is, again, way more effective than sitting around being hypercritical on yourself, focusing on everything that you think is wrong.

When you look at your life through the eyes of a designer, you're looking at what is possible. You are fighting for the evolution of this project that you're working on. You are fighting to see it come to reality, which means you can't sit around and constantly focus on everything that's wrong with it. You've got to look at what's right with it and how can I build upon it. So that's the perspective shift number one that you've got to have if you want to curate your life like a designer. You need to see the potential, not the flaws.

Number two, create a vision and anchor it. Every transformation, whether it be a room and a house or it is your life, it begins with a vision. You must define what it is that you want. I think about going into this house that we are remodeling. If I walked into it and I just said to the contractors that we're working with, "I don't know, I don't know what I want," they wouldn't be able to help me. Nothing would change because no decisions are being made, and the project just stalls because someone needs clarity. Someone needs to know, "Here's the vision, here's the feel, here's the look. Here's the walls I want to come down. Here are the ones I want to put up. Here's the paint color. Here's the lighting." Someone needs to have the vision.

When it comes to our own lives, here's what I've seen women do in all of the years that I've been coaching, almost two decades now. One, you want someone else to give you the vision. Now, really think about that. I imagine with my home, if someone came in with completely different taste, different values, a different view of the world, and designed my house, it may be beautiful, but it's not going to feel like me. I'm going to be in this house thinking, "Gosh, I'm not really fulfilled in this house." Why? Because it was someone else's vision, not mine. The second thing that I see women do is, you are so afraid of getting the vision wrong you pretend to be confused. You are afraid of choosing the wrong thing to work towards, and so therefore it's just easier to pretend that you don't know and you're confused about it because then you don't have to take action.

And then there is what I consider to be a pretty small group of women actually who generally don't know what they want. You can sit there and hold space for them and they just keep drawing a blank. I do believe deep down they do know, but maybe they have been so disconnected from their desires or they haven't been exposed to the possibility of what it is that they want, that in the moment it is very difficult for them to have a vision for their life.

If you can relate to that, here's what I want to offer you. Start with what you know you don't want. Most of us know what we don't want. We don't want to be in debt. We don't want to be in relationships where we feel underappreciated. We don't want to be in soul-sucking jobs. We can usually pretty easily define what it is that we don't want. And that's a great place to start actually, because if you don't want this, then what is the opposite of that? Use that as the jumping off board to discover what it is that you want so that you can begin to create that vision for your life. You don't need to know the specifics.

I remember when I first started this work, I didn't know. I mean, I grew up in a trailer in the deep south. My possibility was very limited, but there was an essence that I knew I was after. I knew that I was always drawn to beauty, and I loved reading inspiring books. I loved being connected to really fun and cool and optimistic people, and it turns out those are my core values. So I just started going in that direction. And the more I went in the direction of the feeling of the life I wanted, the vision became more and more clear. This is why I love the Live Like an Editor workshop, because we do this work, we start with the essence and we begin to build around it.

If you think about really great designers, one of the things that they do is they create, you can call them vision boards or mood boards before even starting a project. This is something that we're going to be doing in the Live Like an Editor workshop. You're really going to be begin to think of your life as a magazine and you're going to begin to build it out and you're going to get so much clarity. So if you want to go deeper into this work, I promise you you're going to love this workshop. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/editor and join us. So that's number two.

Number three, to curate your life like a designer, the perspective that I want you to have is to work with what you have. How often do you say, "I can't do this because of that"? And that just limits you. A designer is really good at getting creative with the budget and the resources and what they currently have. They might repurpose an old chair with a coat of paint and a new cushion, making it a standout piece. And you can do this in life. I think about when I first started my business. I didn't have any help. It was just me. I was trying to learn how to build a website. I was trying to create my own workbooks. And I used the resources that I had. Now when I go back and look at my old branding, I'm mortified, and I'm also extremely proud. I'm proud that I didn't let it stop me, that I didn't have world-class designers. I didn't let it stop me that I didn't have a lot of money to hire people. I just made the most of what I had.

Think about new designers who are just getting into the industry and they're learning and they're growing. They're probably not going to start in a palatial mansion trying to redesign it. They're going to start with something small, and they're going to learn so much with that first project. And from that first project, they are going to gain more knowledge, they're going to increase their skillset, they may increase their capital to work with, and it just spills over into the next one and the next one. And as they do that, the possibilities just keep expanding. But you've got to start with where you are and with what you have. And that is a designer mindset.

The next thing that is so important, and this is where I see a lot of you getting yourself overwhelmed and scattered and not really getting the momentum going in your life, is you're trying to redesign your whole life at once. You start the new year out with like 10 to 20 goals. You wake up in the morning not really knowing where to focus because you want to accomplish so much. Well, a designer, guess what they do? They have the vision for their life, but how does that vision come to fruition? It comes to fruition by focusing on room by room. They're not going to be remodeling the kitchen while they're also remodeling the dining room. They're going to focus on one room at a time.

The way you can apply that to your life is to think about focusing on one part of your life at a time. Now, this is very difficult for us ambitious ladies because we want to do it all at once. But I will tell you, by having one signature goal every year and not trying to do a hundred things, I have been able to create so much momentum in my life. Now, it doesn't mean that as I'm remodeling my kitchen, that I might also be putzing in the dining room and thinking about what I want to do over there and maybe even making some tweaks over there. I realize that we have more than one goal at a time, but there is something powerful about deciding what your number one priority is for the year.

One of the questions that I recently asked was, if you could give your attention to just one area of your life for a whole year, which area would have the biggest impact? Think about it. If you could choose one area of your life to focus on this year that would have the biggest impact on the rest of your life, where would you focus? Would it be your health? Would it be your finances? Would it be your relationships? Would it be your business and career? Where would you focus this year? And what if you just decided, "I'm going to reinvent my life by reinventing one room at a time"?

I do believe this is why School of Self-Image members have so much success, is that I teach them the skill. I teach them the art of focusing. Year after year, women will come to me and say, "I was able to accomplish more than a year than I was able to accomplish in the last decade." Because here's what happens. As you focus on that one room and you start to reinvent that area of your life, you're also reinventing yourself. Because that's what is required to reinvent a room of your life. You have to look at your own self-image and how you're showing up in that area. But what ends up happening is that who you're becoming in that one area automatically impacts how you're showing up in the other rooms of your house. So if you're one of those women who are very resistant to focusing, you're trying to do too much and you're overwhelmed, just please take my word for this, think like a designer. Focus room by room.

And then the last perspective shift that you have to have as a designer is, we're going to quote Marie Forleo here, you've got to cultivate a figureoutable mindset. As she says, "Everything is figureoutable." Because inevitably, when you start to redesign a house, you're going to run into some challenges. Maybe one of your subcontractors gets sick and puts you behind schedule. Or maybe you find out, God forbid, there's mold in the walls and you have to completely do mold remediation. There's going to be some challenge, and that is what happens whenever you decide to transform your life. You are going to have challenges. I've never met anyone who was going after something big that didn't encounter obstacles along the way. But when you think like a designer, you know that every challenge has a solution. And designers have the mindset of everything is figureoutable.

I think about my mom. My mother is a very creative woman, and she's always had this mindset of, "Watch me." I think my mom loves a challenge. She loves to show herself what she's capable of. And I'll never forget, she had a catering company at one time, and she would cater these big events. I think up to like a thousand people was probably her largest one. She would often cater weddings, and she would sometimes include ice sculptures as part of the service that she would offer. I'll never forget this one wedding. She had, I think it was a swan ice sculpture. And when she was cutting it out of the mold, the swan's neck broke. So there she is. It is probably about an hour before the wedding, and she's holding a swan's head in her hand.

Now, I think about this as it relates to life. There are many times that we are going after something, and something breaks. Maybe we get sick, or maybe a launch didn't go the way you had planned, or maybe you get into, God forbid, an accident, something breaks. But when you have that figureoutable mindset, you don't give up on what it is that you want. You just use your creativity to figure out how to overcome the obstacle that's facing you.

So what did my mom do with this swan that had broken? She got creative, and she figured out, "If I take a wooden dowel, and I drill a little hole in the body and the neck, I can just put the neck back on." And then she created this beautiful floral necklace to go around the swan's neck. It ended up being more beautiful with the neck broken than it would've been with it not because she got creative. She didn't let the obstacle mean there's going to be no ice sculpture here. She didn't make it mean that something was wrong with her. She didn't make it mean that she was such a failure. She just did what a designer does. She got to work and she figured it out.

That's what I want you to do. In fact, think of a challenge that you're having right now. I was just coaching one of the members not too long ago who was facing her own challenge. She has her passion goal, the goal that she really wants to go after, and she needs to have money to go after this goal of hers. The way she was thinking about it was so limited. It was like, "I either can do this or I can do that." And I was like, "You do realize there is a multitude of possibilities outside of what you are currently considering?"

I started to throw things around and offer her ideas, and she came back later and she was like, "I didn't even consider that I could apply for a grant until after that conversation." And that's the way I think. I think I got it from my mom. Whenever I'm facing a challenge, I'm like, "Oh, bring it. I'm going to figure this out." It's why I keep going. It's why I don't get threatened when I'm facing a challenge. I know that those challenges are inevitable. Every single one of us is going to face them. It is our attitude towards them that determines whether we overcome them or we just give up.

So think about a challenge that you're having right now, and I want you to pretend that you're a designer, because you are, you're designing your life. Put on that designer hat and think of some creative solutions to this challenge that you're facing. The quality of your life really does depend on the quality of your questions. When you begin to ask more of your brain, when you begin to ask more of yourself, you will come up with solutions that maybe you had never considered before that could be the very solution to help you overcome this challenge. And that's what it's like to curate your life like a designer.

So to recap, to curate your life like a designer, you need to, number one, see the potential, not the flaws. You need to create a vision for your life. You need to work with what you have, focus room by room. And then finally, cultivate a figureoutable mindset.

Have a beautiful, beautiful week, my friends. And I am on fire. I will tell you, if you join Live Like an Editor workshop, you're going to be thanking me. It's going to be so good. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/editor. You can read all about it. We are starting soon. We are going to have so much fun creating the magazine a few, because that's what we're doing. So I hope to see you at the workshop, and I hope to see you on our next episode. Cheers.

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It’s my birthday week, and I’ve been thinking about something that makes me laugh: this persistent myth that our best years somehow end up in our rearview mirror.

You know what I mean – those subtle (and not-so-subtle) messages that suggest life peaks at some magical age, and then it’s all downhill from there.

Well, I’ve got news for anyone pushing that narrative: I’m not buying it. Not even a little bit.

I’m convinced my best years are still ahead of me. Here’s the catch, though – this isn’t just positive thinking or birthday wishful dreaming. I know that making this true requires action. You can’t coast into your best life while stuck in comfortable routines.

That’s why I’m a big believer in regularly shaking things up. Think about it: when was the last time something amazing happened while you were following the same old pattern?

Life’s magic tends to appear when we step out of our comfort zones – when we try that unusual dish on the menu, book that spontaneous trip, or rock that bold outfit we’ve been nervous to wear.

The math is simple: if you want different results, you need different actions. Stagnation is the enemy of growth, and I refuse to let my life become a rerun of yesterday’s episodes.

In this week’s podcast, I share three ways I’m shaking up the status quo and explain why these small disruptions can lead to major breakthroughs. After all, you can’t write a new chapter while reading the same old page.

Here’s to getting older and getting bolder!

The Art of Disruption If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.

~ Henry Ford

Life has a sneaky way of settling into patterns. We find our comfortable groove, and before we know it, that groove becomes a rut. The beautiful truth about disruption? It’s not about creating chaos – it’s about creating possibility.

Think of your life as a snow globe. Sometimes, the most magical moments happen when someone gives it a gentle shake. Those floating pieces? They’re opportunities waiting to land in new and unexpected places.

Your invitation this week: Seek out the unfamiliar. Let yourself be delightfully surprised by the magic that unfolds when you dare to do things differently.

The Shake-Up List: 99 Daring Ways to Do Life DifferentlyI’ve always believed that life becomes magical when we dare to do things differently. That’s why I created this collection of 99 ways to disrupt your daily patterns and invite possibility into your life.

From sending yourself flowers to hosting an impromptu dinner party to taking a dance class that makes you move in entirely new ways – each suggestion is designed to spark joy and create momentum in your life. Consider it your personal playbook for elegant disruption.

Get The Shake-Up List3 Ways I’m Shaking Up My Life This YearIn this birthday week episode, I pull back the curtain on three bold changes I’m making. We’ll explore the art of moving beyond comfort zones and how to embrace change with style and grace.

Whether you’re feeling stuck in a pattern or simply ready for something new, this conversation will inspire you to make your own elegant disruptions. After all, life’s too short for the same old, same old.

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Listen to the Full Episode:Transforming 'Should' into 'Desire': A Journey to Self-Discovery

The word "should" carries significant weight in our lives, often representing obligation and criticism. In this podcast episode, Tonya Leigh explores the profound impact that this single word can have on our mental and emotional well-being. When we use "should," it typically conveys a sense of duty or correctness, suggesting that there is a right way to do things. This inherent judgment can lead to feelings of shame and guilt, ultimately hindering our personal growth and fulfillment.

She shares a relatable story about a listener named Jeanette, who eagerly anticipates Tonya's annual Live Like an Editor workshop as a tool for success. Tonya emphasizes the importance of breaking free from the cycle of "shoulds" that keep us playing small and reflects on her decision to take January for deep reflection before diving into the new year.

Tune in to discover strategies for overcoming the pressure of expectations and embracing your true desires.

Episode Details:00:32 - Breaking Free from "Shoulds"

01:56 - Reflecting on the New Year

03:31 - The Concept of "Should Season"

05:09 - Definition of "Should" and Its Implications

08:00 - The Harm of "Should" in Personal Growth

10:24 - Internal "Shoulds" and Self-Criticism

13:31 - The Pressure of Societal Expectations

16:14 - The Paradox of Self-Acceptance

19:25 - The Body Test for True Desires

23:32 - Building a Life Based on True Desires

24:56 - Conclusion: Embracing True Desires

Useful Resources: Click HERE for Five Essential Questions * Click HERE to join the Membership * Click HERE for a FREE download * Click HERE* to sign up for our weekly newsletter, The Edit

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Click HERE to subscribe to our YouTube channel DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:Have you ever noticed how the word "should" seems to follow us around like a critical friend, constantly whispering in our ear everything that we're not doing right? Maybe you've experienced the familiar heaviness in your chest when someone tells you how you should be doing things or that not in your stomach when scrolling through social media and thinking about all of the things that you should be doing with your life. Well, today we're going to explore why this single word might be the biggest obstacle standing between you and what you truly desire. And more importantly, how to finally break free from the endless cycle of shoulds that keep you actually playing small. Let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, Master Life Coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello, hello, my beautiful friends. Welcome to another episode. I have a fun story to tell you. I was in the grocery store a few days ago and this woman comes running up to me and she was like, "Tonya Leigh, is that you?" And I turned to her and I was like, "Yep, it's me." And she was so lovely, her name is Jeanette. And she told me that she's been listening to the podcast for about three years, she has been around for a long time. And she told me that one of the things that she looks forward to every year is doing my Live Like An Editor workshop. And she was like, "Why haven't I seen it this year?" She was like, "It's the one thing that I do every year that really sets me up for success."

And I told her like I'm telling you right now, "We are doing it." We are doing it in February this year. I intentionally took the month of January to really slow down and to spend some time in deep reflection. I do think we jump into the new year sometimes with that new year, new you energy, which is why January the 10th is actually called National Quitters Day, because historically that is the day when people quit on their resolutions and their goals. Just 10 days in. And I think many times it's because people aren't spending the time to really go deeper. Think about it, we've come off of the holidays and we haven't even had a chance to get our Christmas decorations down when we're expecting ourselves to come up with a whole new plan for the new year. And so I slowed it down this year and it has felt really, really good, and I feel like February is going to be the perfect time for Live Like An Editor. For any of you all who are like Jeanette, you're wondering where is it? It's coming.

And if you want to do some of that deeper reflection that I was talking about, I actually put together five questions that I have been journaling-on over the past month, and they have helped me have so much clarity and I think it's such a great precursor to the Live Like An Editor workshop. If you want to get access to those five questions, you can go to schoolofselfimage.com/art. It's called the Art Of The Edit, Five Essential Questions To Curating Your Most Authentic Year Yet. They are so good, go download them, spend some time with these questions and stay tuned for Live Like An Editor which is coming in February.

Now, I have another really important public service announcement. Should Season is out my friends. What is Should Season? Well, it is that time in your life when your actions are driven by obligation rather than true desire. It's when every decision that you make comes with a weight of expectation rather than excitement. It's also when you find yourself constantly measuring your life against an impossible standard and collecting evidence of all the ways that you are falling short. Is any of this sounding familiar? It's a season marked by self-criticism where your inner dialogue is filled with everything you're supposed to be doing, everything you're supposed to want, and everything you're supposed to have achieved by now.

This is for all of y'all who think you are behind and you're constantly telling yourself that you should be further ahead. It's when your choices are shaped more by what others expect than what you truly want, it's when you're living in preparation mode instead of presence, and it's when you're more focused on fixing yourself than expressing yourself. Should Season, this is how you're going to know if you've been in it. It's when shame and guilt becomes your compass instead of desire being your guide. That season is out my friends.

When I was preparing for this episode, I looked up the definition of should and here's how Oxford English Dictionary describes it, "Should is defined as used to indicate obligation, duty, or correctness, typically when criticizing someone's actions." Let's dissect this. It indicates obligation, something you have to do. It indicates duty, something you're supposed to do. It indicates correctness, meaning there is a right way to do things. And most importantly, it typically is used when criticizing someone's actions. Built into the very definition of criticism is judgment, judgment of how someone is behaving or what they're doing. And this explains why should, if you pay attention when you use it or when you hear it from others, it feels very heavy and it usually immediately triggers shame because at its core it is a word of criticism or judgment.

Even when it's presented as helpful advice, "You should try this or you should do it this way." The underlying message is still criticism, the way you're doing it isn't right. And when we use it on ourselves such as, "I should be better at or I should have." We're essentially turning that criticism inward and becoming our own worst critic. Now, in life, you are going to have two versions of shoulds. You're going to have external shoulds, and this is when people are telling you who you should be, what you should want, how you should do things, how you should behave. And we cannot control the people, the people are going to be the people. And so we just have to recognize that word and its impact on us and we have to do our own work not to internalize it.

And sometimes it's very innocent. The other day, I'll give you an example, I was laying in bed with Vons and in a very jokingly way I was like, "You should rub my back right now." And he said to me, he was like, "Will you just ask me?" And I thought about that. It was me indicating that he is supposed to be doing it and even though I meant it in a fun and joking way, I realized that word is not the best way to make a request. And so even sometimes myself will use this word not intentionally to hurt someone or to trigger a negative emotion but it really was a moment of clarity for me.

I was like, "I am going to stop using this word. I'm going to really pay attention. Because I know I use it on myself and I know there's nothing good that comes from it, it just creates this heaviness in my body." And so that was really interesting and he called me out which I appreciate, that's why he's so good for me. He holds a mirror up to me in a way no one else ever has and I'm so, so grateful for that.

I'll never forget a few years ago someone that I respected turned to me and said, "You should be further along in your business." And I remember in that moment just feeling shame like, "God, I'm doing this wrong." Even though I was so proud and loving where I was in my business at that time, that one statement calls me to question everything. And that's why we have to be mindful of these are just sentences that are being offered to us. Notice how they feel, is there any truth in them? If it triggers a reaction, maybe it's something you haven't worked through in your own self. Because when I think about that one statement, there was a part of me that has often wondered if I would've done things in a certain way actually against my own ethos, against my own desire because I have loved growing my company slowly, I have loved enjoying the journey. And I know that if I would have tried to do it faster, I wouldn't have enjoyed the process as much.

But there is that little part in the back of my brain that's always said, "Well, if you would've done it this way, you shouldn't have done it this way and you could have grown faster." It just means that I need to go in and reconcile that, to make peace and to really appreciate how I've built my business because I'm very proud of it. But people will do this to you all day, every day. I've done it to people not realizing the impact that it was having on them. I'm sure I've done it to my daughter many, many times, "You should wear that outfit or you should consider doing this." There's a whole different way that you can communicate to people like, "Have you considered one possibility is you could try this? You could think about doing it this way." It's very different than using the word should.

Should, again, indicates obligation, something you have to do. It indicates duty, something you're supposed to do. It indicates correctness, a right way to do things. And we already live in a world where we're always thinking we're doing it the wrong way so should just triggers that. And most importantly, it is typically used when criticizing someone's actions so pay attention when you might be using this with the people that you love.

Now, here's the really interesting thing. Sometimes people will offer you a should that actually has some truth in it for you but the way it's presented, there is a better way. For example, if someone said to me, "Tonya, you should really consider living in the south of France one day." I'd be like, "Huh, maybe I should." That is a possibility. Not every should may trigger the shame, it may trigger possibility, it may trigger excitement. Pay attention to that. However, as we are delivering our shoulds to the world, I want us to be very mindful of how we communicate them. Again, "Have you ever considered that you could actually live in the south of France one day?" Is a better way in my opinion to express that versus, "You should consider it." Can you all see the difference?

Now, let's talk about the should that we really need to pay attention to and this is the one that we use on ourselves, these are the internal shoulds. I want you to notice if any of these sound familiar to you. I already mentioned this one but it's one that I hear a lot coaching women, "I should be further along right now." I want you to just understand that there is no upside to that thought. When you think that, how does it feel in your body? I'm guessing heavy, suffocating. It might make you want to contract. There is no upside to it. And if you think about the emotion that that cause maybe regret, disappointment, sadness, frustration, and those emotions never birth positive actions. If you were supposed to be further along right now, guess what? You would be.

I love what Byron Katie says, "To argue with reality is to argue with God, and you only lose 100% of the time." There is no upside to saying, "You should be somewhere other than where you are." It slows you down. And here's the crazy part, it keeps you creating the same thing over and over again. How often do you say to yourself, "I should be a better..." Fill in the blank, a better wife, a better mom, a better business owner, a better friend. It's indicating that you are not doing some role in your life right and it's filled with criticism. It's a very different sentence versus, "I want to be be." I want to be a better mom. I want to be a better wife. I want to be a better business owner. That is you focusing forward as to what you want versus focusing on trying to change from criticism and obligation.

Here's another one that I hear, "I should be married by now." I was just coaching someone in the membership on this the other day and what I can offer you is the same thing that I offered you on the last example. If you were supposed to be married right now, you would be. Really think about it. What is the upside in you thinking you should be in a relationship and married when you're not? It is arguing with reality. Now, it's very different than saying, "I want to be married. I'm excited to find my partner." Or maybe you don't want to be married but you keep thinking that you should want to be married because all of your friends are getting married, then it's about you making peace with what you want, what you truly desire.

Here's a good one and one that probably 99.9% of the listeners will say, "Yep, I've thought that at some point." "I should lose weight." Should you? Why? Who said? Where did that come from? It is very different than saying, "I want to get healthy. I want to lose weight. I want to learn to take care of my body. I want to feel energy. I want to feel healthy." I should lose weight is heavy. And when you're feeling heavy, what do you want to do? I know me, I went ahead straight to the fridge and eat and prove myself true. See, y'all. I should be losing weight because that's how the self-image cycle works. You have a sentence in your mind that causes you to feel a certain way, that causes you to do certain things, and you keep proving that true. And every time you do, you keep cementing a self-image with every cycle.

If you see yourself as an overweight woman and you walk around telling yourself, "I should lose weight." Can you see how that cycle works? Think about the version of you that's lost the weight, what is she telling herself? She's not talking about how she should lose weight, she's talking about how she loves taking care of herself, how she loves having energy, how she wants to do things. It's a true desire and you have to start aligning with her now first with your thoughts. And when you think about your future self, she doesn't have a should season. She got through that a long time ago which is how she was able to create that future.

Let's talk about some other shoulds that I hear, "I should be more organized." Should you? Why? Who said? There are some people right now who are thinking that they should be more organized when in fact they don't want to be, and that's okay. Now, I personally think being more organized helps so many areas of our lives. I think it helps our brains to think better. I think it creates space for creativity. But I will also say that I have known many successful people who are not organized so it is not mandatory, it is not a requirement. When you make peace with who you are, then you can change. And I'm not going to take credit from that, that's from Carl Rogers who was an American psychologist who says, "The curious paradox is when I accept myself as I am, then I can change." Every time you should on yourself, you're not accepting yourself as you are, you're criticizing yourself thinking you should be something different than who you are in that moment.

And the shoulds just go on and on, "I should meditate every day. I should be more productive. I should have my life together. I should be happier, more grateful. I should be more loving. I should have more friends. I should be socializing more. I should have more in my savings right now. I should own a house by now. I should be investing better. I should spend less on my self-care. I should spend more on my self-care." It runs the gamut. And if you pay attention, you're probably doing this to yourself all day every day. And I just want you to understand the impact of that on your soul, on your spirit. A free spirit is not weighed down by shoulds. To have that free spirit, you're going to have to start shedding the shoulds.

Now, here's where things get interesting and maybe a little bit tricky. Because while it's easy to spot the obvious shoulds like when someone literally tells you what you should do, what about those sneaky shoulds that masquerade as our own desires? It's the ones that feel like personal goals but still leave you feeling heavy in your chest when you think about them. That's one of the things that we work on within the membership is helping people figure out their true desires, what is signature to them, so unique to them. Because even with goals, I have noticed even in my own life going after goals that were should goals, and those were the years that I was the least fulfilled. It's only when I've gotten in touch with my true desires and made those the goals that I have had years where I felt excited, where I felt aligned, where I felt like I was moving towards my own North Star.

How do you distinguish between what you authentically want and what you think you should want? I'm going to give you some exercises to consider, and the first one is the body test. Hold that potential desire in your body and see if it feels expansive or if it feels contracting. The body doesn't lie. The body holds so much wisdom and oftentimes we need to get out of our head and get into our bodies to find our truth. When you think about let's just say losing weight and being successful at it, does it feel expansive? Does it feel exciting? And most importantly, does it feel like love? Or does it feel contracting? Does it feel like you are in prison?

Now, I want to be very mindful. Don't think about the process because the process for any goal is going to come with obstacles and challenges that if we focus on those, we will talk ourselves out of it every single time. Don't think about the process of getting there, just think about getting there, being there, and notice how it feels.

I have done this with women before, and women who thought that weight loss was their goal ended up not being a true desire at all. They were actually without society telling them what they should look like, without hearing their mother in their head from childhood saying, "You should lose weight." They were actually very happy with their bodies. I've been there. There was a time in my life where I was still going after weight loss and I realized, "Wait, I'm actually really pleased with my body right now. Why am I doing it?" And it's because for me, weight loss was always the goal that I was used to going after. And so don't be surprised even with weight loss if you find out it's not actually a true desire, and that's okay. Making peace with that opens you up now to consider what do I really want to focus on? What do I really want to go after?

The next way you can find out if something is a true desire or just a heavy should is with what I call the source test. And the way you do this test is you ask yourself, "If no one knew about this choice or if you couldn't post about it, would you still want this?" It's so good. I think about my house. If no one ever saw my house, if I never shared my house, if I never ever invited another person into my house, would I still want this house? And the answer is yes. I feel so at home here, I love it here. I told Vons the other day, I'm like, "I never want to leave." I have become a legit homebody. I just enjoy this space so much and so that reflects back to me. It's a true desire and I'm so glad I went for it.

But there are other people who are focused on buying a home or building a home because they think they should. Maybe they were told that they should own a home or maybe they're trying to compete with the Joneses, I don't know. And when they really look at if I couldn't share this, if no one knew about this choice, they realize I don't want a home. I want to rent and travel and not have that obligation. And that's okay too.

There's also the language test. Listen to your inner dialogue because true desire sounds like, "I want to explore. I'm curious about... I feel drawn to... I'd love to try. This lights me up. I'm excited for..." Whereas fear and shame shoulds sounds like, "I need to prove. I have to show them. Everyone else is... I'll be behind if I don't. What will they think if..." If you are building a life off of fear and shame shoulds, you are going to be building a prison for yourself because forever you are going to be taking action to prove, to show them, to try to run from the fear and the shame. But when you build your life based off of true desire, it is so fun, it's exciting, it's loving, it's joyful. And that's why should seasons got to go. Because more than anything, for every single one of you listening to this, I want you to be living a life that lights you up from the inside out and from the outside in. And you can never do that if you are taking actions because you think you should be.

As we wrap up today, I want you to imagine dropping the heavy backpack of shoulds, the one that you've been carrying probably for way too long, and fill the lightness that comes when you release all those expectations, obligations, and criticisms both from yourself and from others. Because here's what I know for sure, your desires are waiting on the other side of your shoulds. They are those quiet whispers of what you truly want, that lights you up, what feels expansive and exciting. The next time you hear yourself say, "I should." I want you to take a pause, take a breath, and ask yourself, "Is this a true desire or am I trying to meet someone else's expectations or my own that doesn't serve me?" Remember, you get to choose. You get to write your story. You get to define what success looks like for you.

Should season might've been a long season in your life but today marks the beginning of a whole new season, one where you listen to your desires, where you trust your intuition and move forward with choices that feel aligned with who you truly are, not who you think you should be. Because the truth is there is nothing that you should be doing, there's only what you choose to do. And that choice, that is your power. Until next time, remember this, your desires are never wrong. They're simply showing you the way home to yourself.

Have a beautiful week, my friends. And I will see you on the next episode. Cheers.

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There’s something powerful about making a declaration.

Not a resolution that might fade by February, not a wishful thought that dissolves in the day-to-day rush, but a true declaration. The kind that plants its feet firmly in your life and says, “I’m here to stay.”

That’s exactly what I did this week when I chose my word of the year. One word that will be my compass, my touchstone, my north star for the next 365 days.

It’s more than just picking a pretty word or following a trend – it’s about declaring the energy I want to cultivate in every aspect of my life.

You see, when you declare something – really declare it – you’re not just hoping it might happen. You’re creating a contract with yourself. You’re saying, “This is who I am now. This is the energy I embody.”

There’s no room for maybes or what-ifs. It’s done. Decided. Declared.

Think about it: How different would your year look if you approached it not with tentative plans but with powerful declarations?

What if, instead of trying to change, you simply declared yourself changed?

In this week’s podcast, I’m sharing the word I’ve declared for this year. More importantly, I’m breaking down how you can find yours – not just a word but a declaration that will shape your entire year.

Here’s to the magic of your declarations!

P.S. Ready to declare your word of the year? Tune in to the podcast, and let’s make it official.

When Language Creates Reality Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny.

~ Lao Tzu

There’s a profound difference between hoping and declaring. When you declare something, you’re not just speaking words into the air – you’re creating a new reality. Like a judge’s gavel striking with finality, your declaration reverberates through every choice you make thereafter.

This week, notice the power of your words. Transform your tentative “I’ll try” into a bold “I am.” Let your declarations be the foundation for your remarkable year.

Your words don’t just describe your reality – they create it.

Folsom Backgammon GameGames are one of my love languages, a way I connect deeply with others while letting my playful spirit shine. This exquisite backgammon set is my daily reminder to prioritize joy and connection.

Designed with vintage flair, it’s an invitation to slow down and savor life’s sweetest moments. I display mine in my living room, ready for an elegant evening with friends or a strategic match over morning coffee.

Purchase The GameMy 2025 Word of the YearIn this intimate episode, I reveal my declared word for 2025 and guide you through the transformative process of choosing your own. We’ll explore why traditional resolutions often fall flat and how declaring your word of the year can become your compass for creating a life you love.

Whether you’re feeling clear about your direction or seeking guidance, this episode will help you craft a powerful declaration that will shape your entire year. Together, we’ll discover how one word can become your foundation for a joyful reinvention.

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Listen to the Full Episode:The Shake-Up List: 99 Daring Ways to Live Life Differently

To break free from monotony and stagnation, it is essential to engage in new experiences, meet new people, and expose ourselves to different ideas and activities. This concept is central to the discussion in the podcast episode, where Tonya Leigh emphasizes the importance of shaking things up in our lives to foster personal growth and transformation.

Tonya explores the theme of breaking free from the monotony of everyday life. She acknowledges the feelings of being in a rut that many women experience, even when life seems perfectly fine on the surface. She emphasizes the importance of shaking things up to step into new possibilities and change and discusses how repetitive routines can solidify a self-image that keeps us stuck.

Join Tonya as she invites you to embrace change and discover new ways to invigorate your life.

Episode Details:00:42 - Embracing Change and Possibilities

03:01 - Balancing Routine with New Challenges

04:15 - The Shake-Up List

08:00 - The Benefits of Unplugged Time

11:03 - Experimenting with New Approaches

14:08 - Following Curiosity

20:26 - Creative Momentum

22:45 - Empowering Yourself to Shake Things Up

Useful Resources: Click HERE for the FREE Shake-Up List * Click HERE to join the Membership * Click HERE for a FREE download * Click HERE* to sign up for our weekly newsletter, The Edit

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Click HERE to subscribe to our YouTube channel DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:Do you ever feel like you're watching your life on repeat? Like, you've seen this episode before, same routine, same thoughts, same conversations, just a different day. If you're nodding your head right now, you are not alone. I've been there too, and I've learned that the antidote to this everyday monotony isn't just thinking differently, it's doing differently. This year, I'm shaking things up in three specific ways and I'm inviting you to come along for the ride, so let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

What is happening, my friends? Welcome to another episode where we are going to talk about shaking things up. I don't know about you, but this year I'm just feeling this energy of change, this energy of excitement, this energy of stepping into possibilities. And I know one thing to be true. In order to do that, you have to be willing to shake-up your life.

One of the things that women will often say to me is, "Tonya, I feel like I'm in a rut. How did I get here?" And sometimes it's not in a bad way necessarily. Your life might be perfectly fine, but there's this subtle feeling that you're just going through the motions you're living on repeat. Because let's face it, we can get into ruts doing the same thing over and over. And whenever we do that, what's really happening is that we are solidifying a self-image. And if you've listened to this podcast for any length of time, you know that you are always going to subconsciously work to stay in harmony with how you see yourself.

And so, one of the things that I suggest to women when they are trying to get out of the stagnation is that they start doing new things. That they start exposing themselves to new people, new ideas, new activities, new places, new energy, because it's going to shake-up your brain. That's what we're really after. We want to shake-up your brain so that on some level, it almost feels like, I don't know what's going on, I'm sort of losing my identity here. And that's a good thing, because we're wanting that part of you that's stuck, that part of you that feels bored, that part of you that's still stagnant, we want to, as I was telling a member yesterday on a coaching call, we want to kill that part of you. So, we want that identity to die. We want to see ourselves as ever evolving. We want to see ourselves as growing, as expanding.

And one of the reasons why I can look back over the last decade or so, very rarely do I get into a rut anymore. Now, if we talk about pre-ten years ago, I would often be in ruts, but it doesn't happen that often because I'm always putting myself in new situations. I'm always trying new things, I'm always setting new goals, and so I don't give my brain the opportunity to settle too much.

I want you to think about it. If you wake up around the same time every day and get dressed in the same type of clothing, and have your coffee in the same kind of way, and you drive the same way to work and you see the same people and you have the same conversations. And you come home and you eat the same type of dinner and watch the same shows and go to bed around the same time, only to repeat it again tomorrow. You begin to think, this is just who I am. And if you're not satisfied with that day, you're going to be stuck in a self-image that causes you to keep recreating it. And that's why it's so important for us to balance routine and ritual with also these tiny tweaks that constantly challenge our brains, constantly open us up to new ideas, new people, and new possibilities.

And so, if you are someone who's wanting to shake things up this year, I made something for you. It's called the shake-up list, 99 Daring Ways to Do Life Differently. Some of these are outrageous and some of them are super easy to implement. So, all you need to do is go to schoolofselfimage.com/shake-up. It's free, it's fun, and as a community, I want us to really set the intention that we're going to shake-up our lives this year in a beautiful way. We are going to try new things. We are going to experience new places. We are going to maybe dress in new ways. We are going to have different types of conversations, with the intention of growth, expansion and possibility.

So, let me share with you three ways I am going to shake-up my life this year. Remember, shaking up your life is doing things differently. And one of the things that when I say this, you may think, oh my God, Tonya, this is a dream. But oftentimes, the dreams that we want to step into are often so scary because we've been so accustomed to doing life a certain way. And maybe that way of doing our lives has worked out really well, we have created great results. I call this your success strategy. It's helped you to create the life you have now and you are afraid of giving it up, but we have to be willing to give it up to go to the next level.

Now, when I say next level, what a lot of people often do is they think, oh my God, this must mean growing our businesses and making more money and moving to a bigger house and moving to a better city. And I just want to challenge you, that what might be next level to you may not look next level to other people. Next level is going to be different for all of us, but next level will always be about soul expansion. Next level will always demand the next version of us, which when I say next version, what I really mean is our truest version, because I think that's what this work is getting us to. I think it's all about getting back to our authentic self-image.

So when I think about one of the ways that I want to shake-up my life this year, it's super scary to me. And when I share it with you, you may be thinking, well Tonya, this sounds like a dream. Why aren't you excited about it? Well, I am excited, but it's also scary because it's going to be me doing things differently. You see, I have created a lot of success with the self-image of a woman who sees herself as a worker. I am a hard worker, is a self-image that I have embraced and has helped me create amazing results in my life.

And last year I realized that I want to change that. I want to change that to, I am a smart worker who knows how to joyfully hustle, because the truth is, I love working. If you all knew how much I worked, you may be a little shocked because I love it so much. That's the problem. I enjoy my work. Even on my days off, I'm often thinking about my business. I'm thinking about my clients, how I can create a better experience, new things I want to teach. It's like my brain is always working. But I did start to ask my question, if I weren't thinking about my business, what else would I be doing with my life? And it's very similar to when I decided to stop dieting. It was like, what else am I going to do with this time? There was a void there that I had to figure out how to fill it, and I'm excited to figure that out this year.

But getting back to how I'm going to shake my life up this year, is I've decided to take more time off. Now, I want to be clear, I'm not talking about the kind of time off where you're still checking emails or planning the next project, but real unplugged, soul-nourishing time off. Because I've realized that my best ideas and biggest breakthroughs often come when I'm not actively pursuing them. They arrive in those quiet moments of reflection during long walks, or while sipping coffee at a cafe in a different city. So by creating more space in my life, I'm actually creating more possibility for creativity, innovation, more joy, and what I know to be true. And this is for all of you business owners out there, you are at the core of your business. If you are not nourished, if you are not fulfilled, if you are feeling depleted, energetically, that affects everything.

Now, I will say for me, I get so much energy from working. It's very rare that I ever feel depleted from work, but I know that some of you right now are feeling that way. And the scariest thing that you could probably consider doing is taking some time off, but I want you to consider, it's the very thing that you need to do in order to shake-up your life and take yourself to the next level.

I'm excited to experiment with the version of me who works very smart. What I mean by that is, to me working smart as being very clear on what deserves your attention, being very clear in what is a priority, being very clear in what it is that you want to produce. Planning so well that you are ahead of schedule, and that you have the ability to take that time off because you have really strategically set up your year. And that is a lot of the work that I've been doing in December and this month in January. I sat down with my team, we laid out the entire year. I told them exactly when I wanted to take off, and we basically just worked everything around that. Whereas in the past it's like, let's plan the business and let me see where I might be able to take some time off.

This year, I did it completely different and I'm so excited to experiment with that, because all this is, is an experiment. Shaking your life up is really just a lot of little experiments that you learn from that teach you what works and what doesn't work, and what you want to adjust and what you want to continue doing and what you want to stop doing and what you may never want to do again. But we have to be willing to experiment because that is the best form of learning. So that is one way that I am shaking up my life this year.

The second way is actually very exciting and also extremely scary as well. This one might be even more scary than taking time off. So, one of the things that I have discovered about me is that I love business. I love creating value, I love creating beauty, I love just the art of business. And I have been very successful in my coaching company. It is my heart, it is my passion. This is one thing that I could see myself doing for a long, long time, and I intend to. I just enjoy supporting women and helping them to expand their self-image. And I always say, follow your curiosity. Follow what lights you up. Follow those little glimmers. Follow that question that you want to answer. In fact, when I look at my life now and how I ended up here, it was by me following those little questions, following something that seemed exciting. I've had a series of projects that have led me here.

I think about when I was trying to figure out what to do with my life next. I was working as a full-time nurse and I knew I wanted to explore more and I wanted to do something differently, but I had no idea what that was. Well, I became interested in wine and I went to sommelier school, and then that led me to the next step. And then, I remember being at a crossroads of like, what do I do here? I have this nursing degree. I'm working as a critical care nurse, but now I've discovered I have this love of food and wine and writing, and I was like, I don't know what to do.

So I hired a coach. I was like, oh, this seems fun, to have a partner to brainstorm with, for them to objectively look at my own brain with me to see what's holding me back, to explore possibilities. And hiring her opened me up to a whole new world that I didn't even know existed that I felt in love with. I could not get enough of it. I was reading every self-help book. I was practicing it, I was doing it. And that led me to having my own coaching business, almost 15 years ago. And now I'm feeling that same curiosity, which is so exciting.

And a business opportunity has come my way that I am highly considering. It's going to be something that I can do on the side. It's not going to be something that takes over my current business, it's just going to be something fun, like a creative project, that I am super excited about, and I'm also equally terrified of. But I also remember being so terrified to leave nursing and pursue a coaching career. Like, who in the world? My mom thought I had lost my mind. She's like, "What are you doing coaching? What? You don't play sports." She was so confused. She was like, "You're going to give up your career as a nurse to go and pursue this thing?" But something within me, my intuition spoke to me and said, "Yes, this is the next step for you." And so, that's sort of... I'm remembering that as I am... Potentially, it's not a done deal yet, but it looks like this year I will be exploring a new business venture. And so I am excited about it.

And no matter if I do it or not, I just know that this is going to shake-up my mind. It's going to cause me to think in new ways. It's going to create this intense curiosity that is going to lead to something good. I know that. Whether it's this business venture or maybe another one, it's just opening myself up to the possibility of something new. And that's what I want us all to do. We can get in such a rut of looking at our lives and our businesses in the same ways, and we can keep ourselves in a box and I just refuse to do that. And so yeah, I'm really excited about exploring this new business possibility and all that I will learn from doing it, and just seeing where it takes my life. And more importantly, how even opening myself up to the possibility of something new, how it causes me to see myself differently. And when you see yourself differently, the things around you begin to rearrange and restructure to reflect that back to you.

So I want you all to think about, what are some possibilities that you want to consider for yourself this year? Allow yourself to dream. Allow yourself to imagine. Open yourself up to maybe doing your business in a new way. Maybe you want to open yourself up to a new business opportunity, or maybe it's something completely different. Maybe it's you opening up your possibility of living in a different country, or maybe it's the possibility of pursuing a hobby that you are so passionate about, but for whatever reason, you have had so many excuses as to why you can't do it. I want us all to be willing to step into the mystery of life in order to open ourselves up to new possibilities, because that's where they're hanging out. There are no guarantees.

I was coaching someone yesterday and she was like, "I just want the guarantee that this is going to work out," and I'm like, that is impossible and if you're waiting for that, you'll never experience if it was possible for you. The creation of your possibility happens in the mystery of life. Are you willing to step into it? Are you willing to feel the discomfort and go out there and experience a life that is waiting for you? And as I was telling a member yesterday when I was coaching, I'm like, "In all of this, you have to be willing to fail. You have to be willing to fail in order to succeed. Because if you're not willing to fail, you'll never give yourself the chance to succeed."

So, that is another way that I am shaking up my life this year. I'm exploring a new business venture, and it's so crazy to me how this came about too. The opportunity literally came knocking on my door. And the beauty of it is it's not going to take a lot of my time, but I will be able to be creative and have some fun, but I won't have to manage it all. So it's just a win-win. And oftentimes, that's the other thing. Opportunities will come and we'll argue with them, and we will talk ourselves down from them, and not realizing that they come knocking on our doors for reasons. And if it feels exciting, if it feels expansive, if it feels like the next step, even if it feels scary, be willing to take it. All right, so that's my second way.

The third way I'm shaking up my life this year is actually a really fun one, because I remember a time in my life where I used to host the most incredible dinner parties, and it's something that I haven't done in a long time. And so this year I'm shaking up my life by, we are planning an epic party at my house this year. And I'm so excited, and I'm excited for various reasons. I'm excited to get back in touch with that part of myself, but I'm also really looking forward to meeting new people and introducing and connecting the people I already know and love with potential new friendships or partnerships. Who knows what happens when you get some amazing people together in the same place? But I want to really shake things up this year by stepping back into being a hostess and creating beautiful experiences where people can relax, where they can have fun, where they can connect, and really just experience the magic of a great party. Because throwing parties isn't just about entertaining, it's about creating momentum for change in your life.

Think about it. What happens when you decide to host an event, whether it's a dinner party, whether it's a bigger party, whether maybe it's an intimate dinner with some of your closest friends? Well, I think about my own experience. When I decide to host a gathering, all of a sudden I create this deadline in my mind of the things that I've been putting off that I'm now committed to getting done. Whether it's cleaning out the garage or whether it's finally hanging that artwork, it creates this deadline that forces you to get into momentum. Also, you step into this creative role, because you begin to think about, okay, what's the vibe? How do I want people to feel? What do I want to serve? What kind of playlist or maybe as we're going to do, what kind of DJ do I want to have? You know what it's like? It's like being a creative director, and there's nothing like creativity to get you out of a rut.

So, if you want to shake things up this year, maybe this is one way that you can do it. Pick a date on the calendar, decide to host a gathering or maybe you want to do several throughout the year. I know for me, we plan to do a bigger party, but throughout the year, I want to host more. I want to have that thing that every month I'm looking forward to doing and creating so that life doesn't feel stagnant. So, pick your date, call your friends, have a party. There's nothing like a party to shake-up your life.

All right, my friends, I want you to remember, getting out of a rut doesn't have to be dramatic, it doesn't have to be sweeping changes all at once. It's really about taking new steps in a different direction. It could be driving a different way to work, wearing your hair a different way, wearing a different style of outfit. But I want you to know this, each of those small decisions to do things differently, they compound over time, creating momentum towards the life that you really desire to live.

The truth is, we all have the power to shake-up our lives at any moment. It doesn't require waiting for the perfect time or the perfect circumstances. It simply requires the courage to step out of your comfort zone and do something, anything, differently. If you want some ideas, head to schoolofselfimage.com/shake-up, and grab the free shake-up list, 99 Daring Ways to Do Your Life Differently. Have a beautiful week, my friends and I will see you on next week's episode. Cheers.

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Happy New Year!

Last night, as I celebrated the arrival of 2025, I found myself thinking about champagne.

Not just the drink (though I’ll never say no to a good glass of bubbly) but the mindset it represents.

You know that feeling when you pop open a bottle of champagne?

There’s this magical moment where you’re excited because it means that a celebration is in order.

That champagne... it’s a whole way of seeing life.

I call it The Champagne Mindset.

It’s about bringing that sparkle of possibility to everything you do, and it’s the secret behind my favorite New Year’s tradition.

Every New Year’s Eve, I pour myself a glass of champagne with friends and celebrate my life – what has been, what is, and what will be.

But here’s the thing: in order to have a Champagne Mindset, you must embrace the pressure.

After all, that’s how champagne is made.

The intense pressure creates, as my French friend would say, liquid gold.

And the same goes for us: some of our best moments come from our biggest challenges.

Want to know more about how to cultivate your own Champagne Mindset? I’m popping the cork on all the details in this week’s podcast.

Grab your favorite flute (fill it with whatever makes your heart bubble), and let’s toast to a year of endless possibilities.

Here’s to your sparkling future!

P.S. Remember: life’s too short for flat perspectives – keep those bubbles of possibility rising!

The Chemistry of Celebration The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Like champagne’s delicate bubbles rising to the surface, our dreams have a natural tendency to elevate us. But don’t forget: those magical bubbles only emerge under pressure. Without the darkness and intensity of aging, champagne would be just another wine.

This week, embrace your challenges as part of your own transformation process. Let each pressure point in your life become a catalyst for something remarkable, just as every bubble in champagne carries a story of possibility.

Baccarat Champagne FlutesSome moments deserve to be savored in style. Handcrafted in France, these Baccarat flutes aren’t just glasses – they’re vessels of transformation, turning ordinary moments into extraordinary memories. Their legendary clarity and perfect silhouette showcase the dance of bubbles while maintaining your champagne’s effervescence.

Consider them an investment in countless future celebrations and a daily reminder to approach life with The Champagne Mindset.

Purchase The FlutesThe Champagne MindsetStart your year with this celebratory episode where I dive deep into the power of The Champagne Mindset. We’ll explore how approaching life with a celebratory spirit not only transforms your results but is also essential for creating what you want in life.

Whether you’ve already set your intentions for 2025 or you’re still figuring out what you want to create, this episode will show you how to infuse your goals with the effervescent energy of celebration.

Listen to The Podcast// TheEDIT

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Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. The election in America is less than a week away. Now, this isn’t a political commentary. This is about you.

I couldn’t help but think the other day that if people were as passionate about themselves as they are their candidates, what a different life they may experience.

How often do you vote for yourself?

Think about it. We get all fired up about our favorite politicians, defending their policies, sharing their posts, and proudly wearing their merch. But when was the last time you campaigned for your own dreams with that same energy?

Imagine if you put that passion into your personal growth, your goals, your wildest ambitions. What if you “canvassed” for your own success, reaching out to people who could help you level up? What if you “donated” more time and resources to your own cause?

It’s easy to get caught up in the noise of elections and feel like our vote is the only way to make a difference. But here’s the truth: the most powerful vote you’ll ever cast is the daily choice to believe in yourself and take action on your dreams.

So, while you’re gearing up to hit the polls, take a moment to consider: Are you on your own ballot? Are you giving yourself permission to win in your own life?

Remember, no matter who ends up in office, you’re always the president of your own life. It’s time to start governing like one.

How will you vote for yourself today?

With love,

Cultivate Self-TrustTrust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

In a world of constant noise and external validation, the most powerful endorsement comes from within. Self-trust is the foundation of personal growth and authentic living.

This week, practice backing yourself. When faced with a decision, pause and listen to your inner voice before seeking outside opinions. Celebrate your wins, no matter how small, as evidence of your capabilities.

Remember, self-trust isn’t about being perfect. It’s about believing in your ability to handle whatever comes your way. As you cultivate this inner strength, watch how it transforms your choices and your life.

Karen Millen Printed Ruffle BlouseCast a vote for style with this eye-catching printed ruffle blouse. Its bold design and feminine details make a statement without saying a word.

Versatile enough for the office or an evening out, this blouse helps you transition from day to night with ease. It’s the perfect way to endorse your personal style and stand out in any crowd.

Let your wardrobe choices reflect your confidence. With this blouse, you’re always dressed to impress – no campaign required.

Purchase the Blouse5 Ways to Vote for YourselfTaking that art class. Asking for the raise. Finally starting a blog. These are all ways of voting for yourself. In this week’s podcast, we’re exploring how these acts of self-investment can transform your life.

I’ll share five practical strategies to prioritize your dreams, amplify your voice, and nurture your growth. Tune in to discover how these small “votes” can lead to big changes in your life and propel you towards your boldest aspirations.

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Listen to the Full Episode:Calm, Cool, and Connected: Embracing a New State of Being

One of the most crucial decisions we make daily is what she refers to as the "Be Decision." This decision centers on consciously choosing who we want to be in any given moment, regardless of the external circumstances we face.

Host Tonya Leigh dives into the concept of the "Be Decision," which focuses on the essential question we should ask ourselves: "Who do I want to be right now?" Tonya highlights the importance of this decision in shaping our experiences and handling life's challenges. She reflects on the anxiety and frustration many people feel when they rely on external circumstances to dictate their state of being. Using a personal story from her recent trip to New York City, she illustrates how life’s unpredictability can impact our emotions but emphasizes that we have the power to choose our responses. Tune in to explore how embracing the “Be Decision” can transform your mindset and lead to a more fulfilling life.

Episode Details:01:09 - The Importance of the "Be Decision"

02:02 - Life's Unpredictability

03:06 - Conscious Choice of Emotions

04:10 - Balancing Professional and Personal Life

05:02 - Energy and Thoughts

05:45 - Trapped by External Changes

06:37 - Default Settings and Triggers

08:44 - Responding to Crisis

10:09 - Energy Shifts and Influence

11:56 - The Self-Image Pause

13:48 - Purposeful Emotional Choices

16:29 - Ripple Effect of Being

20:05 - Curiosity vs. Judgment

24:00 - Life Improvements Through Being

25:04 - Benefits of Calmness

25:36 - Calm, Cool, and Connected

Useful Resources: Click HERE for the FREE Cool, Calm, and Connected Workshop * Click HERE to join the Membership * Click HERE for a FREE download * Click HERE* to sign up for our weekly newsletter, The Edit

Connect with Master Life Coach Tonya Leigh:

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Click HERE to subscribe to our YouTube channel DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:What if the most important decision you make today isn't about what to do but who to be? You see, in every situation you are making a choice, often unconsciously about your state of being, and that choice is shaping your entire experience of life. So today we are going to explore the be decision, a powerful shift that can transform how you show up in every moment, handle challenges, and create results in your life. So let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach Tonya Leigh.

Good morning, my friends, or good afternoon, depending on when you're listening to this episode. Today, we are talking about the most important decision that you make on a daily basis, on an hourly basis, on a minute-by-minute basis. That is what I call the be decision, asking yourself, "Who do I want to be right now?"

I was inspired to do this episode for a couple of reasons. Number one, I am seeing a lot of suffering in the world. It seems like when I look around me, I am seeing people full of anxiety, full of worry, full of frustration, and it is clear to me that their states of being are a result of them wanting the world to be a certain way in order for them to feel better. That's just not how the world works. Things happen that maybe you don't want to happen, and that is the nature of life. Life is not going to go your way 100% of the time.

I was reminded of this recently because a couple of weeks ago I was in New York City getting ready for the final stop of the SOSI tour, and before the event, I get a call from my mother. She is crying, and she tells me that my dad is not well. I already knew that he's been sick for a long time, but she was telling me that the nurses think he is within hours, maybe days, of transitioning. I watched myself immediately go into a default state of doom and gloom and, more than anything, guilt. Guilt, because I wasn't there.

I took a deep breath, and I asked myself who I wanted to be in this moment with nothing outside of me changing. Things are the way they are. Who do I want to be in this moment? And I consciously chose to be sad. I wanted to give myself that permission because I don't think we're always supposed to be happy. I don't think we're always supposed to gaslight ourselves into feeling some way that we don't actually feel. But I think we also need to ask ourselves, do these feelings serve us for what we want to achieve long-term?

In that moment, I wanted to feel sad. I also wanted to feel immense gratitude. I shifted my thoughts and I chose a different state of being. From that new state of being, I asked myself, "Okay, what needs to happen now?" And I had women who were flying in, and I wanted to be present for them, and we had the most extraordinary night. If we were in New York City, did we not have fun? We had so much fun, but I also wanted to get back home. So I changed my flight to leave out the next morning extremely early, which I hate early morning flights, but you got to do what you got to do when I got home, and I was able to be by my dad's side the very next day.

I share that with you because the old me would have not responded in such a way. The old me would have spent so much time in my head thinking about what a terrible daughter I was, about how I couldn't show up and be present at this event, all because I wasn't consciously choosing my state of being. I'm telling you all it is one of the most important decisions you'll make, and here's why. Your beingness is the energy, the predominant energy that you are embodying in any given moment.

That energy is a result of your thoughts, and that beingness is truly creating your entire experience. It's why two people can be in the exact same circumstance but be two very different people. One person can be grateful, maybe even playful, maybe even excited, and the other one can be miserable, anxious, and worried. Why? Because of who they are being. What I want you to know more than anything is that your being is a conscious choice. It is something that you get to choose. But I also want to let you know if you're waiting to be different as a result of the outside world changing, you are keeping yourself trapped.

Carol Dweck, who is the author of the book Mindset, it's an incredible book if you haven't read it, but her research shows that people who be-lieve, I want you to think about that, it's be-lieve that they can grow, which she calls being growth-minded, actually develop more neural pathways than those who don't. So it's not about what they're doing. It's about who they're being and the thoughts they're choosing to focus on and practice believing. But what I often see happen is that most of us, without these tools, just go through life on autopilot. Something happens, and boom, we react based on old patterns, old stories, old ways of being. We're triggered, and before we know it, we're being the anxious one, the angry one, the victim, the martyr, the perfectionist, whatever our default setting might be. I want you to really ask yourself, "What is your typical default setting when something doesn't go your way? When you are triggered, where do you usually go?" And I don't want you to blame yourself.

I don't want you to beat yourself up because that just adds another level of beingness that doesn't serve you. I want you to watch yourself as you would watch a caterpillar crawl across the grass just with curiosity and notice what your typical default state of being is when life is stressful. I'm not talking about when times are good. That's when it's easy to be a certain way. But you might find that even when times are good, you're being in a way that doesn't serve you.

Sometimes when times are good, we are being worried because we have thoughts like, "Oh, I'm about to lose it. The shoe's about to drop. This is too good to be true." So notice your default setting when times are good, but also notice where you like to go, who you tend to be when life gets stressful. I want you to realize that that is an optional state of being. The world does not have to change in order for you to change your state of being. But here's the really cool part. When you begin to shift your state of being during stressful times, the stressful times begin to reorganize and mirror something back differently to you. The reason why is, if you will notice your pattern when you are being a certain way as a result of thinking certain thoughts, your energy shifts. When your energy shifts, you take different actions from a different state of being, and those actions tend to create results that reconfirm your state of being.

So when I think back to getting that call from my parent or my mom and I decided I want to be sad, but I also want to be extremely grateful, I calmed my nervous system, I allowed myself to cry on a bench outside restaurant where I was sitting when I got the call, and then I just shifted into gratitude and presence. I got to work. I changed the flight, easy-peasy. When I got to my dad's bedside, I cried and had so much gratitude. When I walked into the door of my parents' home, I thought to myself, "I want to enjoy every moment. I want to be so grateful. I want to be so loving. I want to be so attentive. I want to be that daughter that my dad raised me to be." And that be decision drove my actions over the next few days.

Yesterday my dad hit a golf ball. It's miraculous, quite honestly, because I didn't think I had but a couple of days with him when I got there. He was bedridden. We're having to do everything for him. But I wonder if that energy shifted his energy. That energy gave him something to fight for. I don't know. It's just a hypothetical guess. But maybe, because before I got there, the energy was different. Yesterday he hit a golf ball. Now granted, my brother was hanging onto him because he's very unsteady, but it was such a gift to see, and I was just so mesmerized by the entire cycle that I was experiencing because I answered the question, "Who do I want to be in this moment?"

This is the work that we do within the School of Self-Image, and I am here to tell you, I have seen women go from years of struggling with money, for example, to creating wealth because they shifted their state of being. I've seen women who have struggled with their weight for years lose the weight and keep it off because they shifted their state of being. I have seen women who have struggled in relationships and finding love go from single to happily in a partnership with someone because they shifted their state of being. No amount of action could have gotten them that result. They may have gotten it temporarily, but then they would lose it because their state of being didn't catch up to this new result. Their self-image didn't catch up to this new result. That's what self-image is. Self-image is your state of being. How you see yourself, how you think about yourself creates your state of being. So how do we shift it? How do you make the be decision consciously because we're all being a certain way, but a lot of times it's just habitual and default modes of being?

So I want to talk about the self-image pause. You can also think of it as the sacred pause. The next time you are in a challenging situation and you find yourself going into that default state of being, maybe it's worry, maybe it's anger, maybe it's frustration, maybe it's sadness, I want you just to stop and notice the trigger. Just stop and ask yourself, "What just triggered me?" Did you get a phone call? Did your kid just spill her drink? Did you just learn that you didn't get the client? Just notice the trigger because what I want you to know is that you're not feeling the way you're feeling because of what just happened. You're having some thoughts that's triggering that emotion, that's creating that state of being. In that sacred pause, that moment, I'm noticing the trigger. I want you to take three deep breaths.

I'm doing it right now in case you're wondering, and I want you to go to this question. With things being the way they are right now, who do I want to be in this moment? Who do I want to be right now? Do I want to be angry? Do I want to be worried? Or do I want to be confident? Do I want to be relaxed? Do I want to be calm? Maybe you want to be sad. Choose it on purpose. Maybe you want to be angry. Choose it on purpose and understand why you are choosing it. Really explore how it might be serving you, or maybe you discover it's not serving you and that at that moment you can choose a different state of being. But who do I want to be right now? Do I want to be present? Do I want to be joyful? Do I want to be playful? Do I want to be confident? Do I want to be abundant? Do I want to be excited? You get to choose those states of being.

Imagine that you're running late for an important meeting. Your default state of being might be to feel stressed, rushed, apologetic. But what if you chose to be composed, present, and confident instead? I want you to understand, your brain is constantly seeking to prove itself true. You have to tell your brain what you want, not let your brain tell you what's up, but you tell your brain, "Here's what we're doing. This is who we're being." And it forces your brain to look for the complimentary accessories that it needs in order to be that way. So the moment you tell your brain, "Hey, listen, Right now, we're going to choose to be composed, present, and confident."

Now your brain's like, "Okay, if this is what we're committing to, I guess I've got to look around and find new ways to think. I got to change my body language. I'm going to have to shift the energy here." But if you do that day after day, month after month, year after year, you will find yourself, years from now, literally being a completely different person. How do I know this? Because I remember how I used to be. I used to be constantly overwhelmed, constantly worried, constantly insecure. Today, I am the complete opposite of that. Why? Because I took advantage of the self-image pause over and over and over again. I'm not going to sit here and tell you it was easy because that default mode of being that comes so naturally, and we do it so often that we just think, "Oh, this is just who we are." But it's only because you haven't been deciding on purpose who you want to be.

Studies from the University of California show that people who make conscious choices about their emotional states show greater resilience and better outcomes in challenging situations. So it's not about denying your initial reaction. It's about choosing who you want to be and how you want to respond to it. Here's what's fascinating. Your being creates a ripple effect. When you choose to be calm, you think calmer thoughts, which lead to calmer actions, which create calmer results. It's a beautiful cycle that starts with this simple be decision. I've seen this transform lives in remarkable ways.

You all, I want to give you another exercise so that you can begin to make your be decisions consciously on purpose. This is inspired by Dr. Benjamin Hardy, who has shown that identity shifts create more sustainable results than changing your willpower. This is why your state of being is so important. Your being is your identity. It's how you see yourself, who you are being. So one of the things that I often hear women say is, "I want to stop overeating. I want to stop procrastinating. I want to stop snapping at my kids." And they are focusing on the action. I want you to, instead, focus on the being part of it. I want you to shift into a positive reframe.

So for example, instead of saying, "I want to stop procrastinating," shift that to, "I am becoming someone who takes immediate action. This is an identity-based decision. I want to be someone who takes immediate action. This is who I'm becoming." And telling your brain that, because if you go to, "I want to stop procrastinating," and you've been procrastinating maybe for years to, "I am a woman who always takes immediate action," your brain's going to be like, "No, you don't. You're lying. It's not true." And that cognitive dissonance can actually backfire, but your brain can believe that you are becoming that. That this is who we're practicing being.

So just notice your language around this and focus your language around shifting your identity. I am becoming... Who do you want to become? Instead of saying, "I need to exercise." Or, "I want to exercise more." Shift it to, "I am becoming an active, healthy person." And notice the difference. Notice what you are inspired to think, what you are inspired to do, and the results of that. Some really helpful states of being that you can also start to practice and explore is going from reactive to responsive instead of immediately reacting in old ways. Stop, notice the trigger. Take three deep breaths and ask yourself, "Who do I want to be in this moment?" And let your response come from that conscious state of being. I'm telling you all it will change your life.

I used to get so triggered all of the time. Now, rarely do I get triggered. Every once in a while I do, and I'm like, "Oh, there's something else to learn here." But rarely do I get triggered. I love to be thoughtful and respond appropriately, which takes some time. Sometimes it means stepping away from the situation and asking myself, "Okay, you are obviously triggered right now. Let's take a look before you say something you're going to regret, before you show up and act in a way that you will not be proud of later." Because we've all done it. We've all been there. We are all so human. But this is a practice.

The other state of being that I encourage us all to practice is being curious versus judgmental, and this practice must start with ourselves because the reason why we're so judgmental towards other people is because we're so judgmental of ourselves. We're just projecting that onto everybody else. So start to be curious with yourself. Instead of saying, "Oh my God, you're such a loser." Be like, "Huh, I wonder why I did that. I wonder what thoughts I had that created me to feel that way and to show up that way." It's such a more beautiful way to live. There's so much more grace in that way of being versus always being so hard on yourself and judgmental of yourself. But then this also is something to practice with other people. Listen, we need this in the world more now than ever before.

We can be so divided because we no longer are curious about each other, like, "Huh, I wonder why you feel that way?" And be really curious, really want to understand and know the answer. I wonder why you did that. Really try to understand where that person is coming from. I'm telling you all if you want a better world, this is the way to create it versus automatically judging people without understanding them, without knowing their story, without knowing where they came from.

The other state of being, which is so important, especially in this day and age where it may seem practically impossible, is practicing being present versus distracted. If you tell your brain, "Hey, today we're going to be present." When you are tempted to pick up that phone and start scrolling, that's a beautiful moment for a self-image pause to be like, "Okay, who do I want to be in this moment?" Because every thought you think and every action that you take is a vote for who you want to be. So if you do not like who you're being, if you don't like the results that you're creating, it's time to start voting for a different version of you. The way to do that is through the self-image pause over and over again.

The other one is being authentic versus being performative. So many of us are performing. I've done it. Out here trying to be who everybody wants me to be, trying to make everybody happy, and it's exhausting. It is so exhausting. I've done many podcasts on this. But what does it look like for you to be authentic, to be true to you, to honor what you value, to say what you want to say from a very conscious, thoughtful place where you've chosen your state of being? Before you just start mouthing off things, which is what we often do, and we say, "Oh, we're being authentic." No, you're just reacting to an emotional state that you did not choose consciously. It's very different versus saying, "You know what? Right now I want to be authentic. I also want to be kind." So what does that look like? And it may not change the words, but it may change the tone.

So those are four really great states of being for a lot of people to practice. They're ones that I continuously practice myself. I will tell you this, my life has become so much better. So much better. I don't need the world to be different in order for me to be different. But when I be different, the world does change.

Now what I've shared today is just a drop in the bucket of something that I have for you. I have been asked by women for months now to bring back one of my most popular workshops called Week of Calm. I had not planned to run this workshop this year because I have other really exciting projects that I'm working on. But I saw a need. I've seen it within myself. I've seen it in the community that I live in. I've seen it with clients. I'm seeing it in the world. We need more calm. We need more levelheadedness. We need more cool and chill in this world. The reason why I believe that so deeply is because when we are calm, we create a calmer world, your home becomes calmer, and you take better actions from a calmer state.

I've had women in the past who have gone through this workshop tell me that it has saved their marriages, that their health is better, that their businesses grew, all because they chose a different state of being. They made the be decision consciously. Because it's around the holidays, and I understand that we have a lot on our plates, a lot of things to get done, I have decided to run a condensed version of the Week of Calm and add in some new material that I haven't covered before, and it's going to be called Calm, Cool, and Connected. It is going to be a powerful three days, and I'm offering this at no cost to you.

If you are feeling a lot of anxiety, if you are frustrated, if you are worried, if you are noticing that it's impacting your ability to sleep, if you are unable to focus and concentrate, and if you feel like you're just stuck in the state of being that you are so done with and you're so tired of, I get it. It seems like since 2020, many of us got stuck in these cycles where we just can't seem to get out. But I'm here to tell you, Calm, Cool, and Connected can help you.

So if you would love to join us for this three-day event, all you need to do is go to schoolofselfimage.com/calm, and I promise you this, if you attend these three days, your future self will be thanking you for it. I'm going to be giving you tools to think about and to practice in your daily life, and I'm going to be sharing with you how to stay cool even when everybody else is seemingly chaotic and not so cool, and how to connect to what truly matters. It is going to be a powerful three days. So come and join us. You can go again, to schoolofselfimage.com/calm, and I cannot wait to see you at this event. I hope you all have the most beautiful week and remember to make the be decision on purpose. I'll see you on the next episode. Cheers.

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In our pursuit of goals and dreams, we often encounter two powerful forces: dedication and attachment.

While they might seem similar on the surface, understanding the difference between them can dramatically impact our personal growth and success.

Dedication is the fuel that drives us forward. It’s a commitment to the process, a willingness to show up day after day, regardless of the immediate outcomes. When we’re dedicated, we remain flexible in our approach, focusing on growth and learning rather than rigid expectations.

Attachment, on the other hand, can be a hidden obstacle. It’s the tight grip we hold on specific outcomes, the belief that success must look exactly as we’ve imagined it. While attachment might feel like motivation, it often leads to anxiety and disappointment when things don’t go according to plan.

Consider how these mindsets might play out:

When dedicated, we see setbacks as valuable lessons. Changes in circumstances become opportunities for innovation. The journey itself holds as much value as the destination.

When attached, those same setbacks feel like personal failures. Changes become threats to our vision. We fixate so much on the end goal that we miss the growth happening along the way.

The key lies in holding our goals lightly. It’s about pouring our energy into the process while remaining open to unexpected turns in our path. This balance allows us to stay committed without becoming rigid. To strive without succumbing to anxiety.

Remember, success isn’t just about reaching a specific destination. It’s about who we become along the way. By choosing dedication over attachment, we open ourselves to a world of possibilities and personal evolution.

As you move forward in your journey, ask yourself:

Am I dedicated or attached? Am I in love with the process of growth or fixated on a particular outcome?

Choose dedication. Release attachment. And watch as your potential unfolds in ways you might never have imagined.

Your path to success is uniquely yours. Embrace it fully, with an open heart and a dedicated spirit.

With love,

Release to Receive Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go.

~ Hermann Hesse

Freedom often lies in the art of releasing. We cling to ideas, habits, and relationships that no longer serve us, mistaking this for strength. True power comes from knowing when to let go.

This week, practice intentional release. Choose one thing you’ve been gripping tightly and consciously let it go. Notice the space this creates for new opportunities and growth.

Remember, letting go isn’t about loss. It’s about making room for something better. As you release, you open yourself to the abundance life offers.

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I love how its clean ingredients let my skin breathe. Plus, it’s versatile for both body and face, simplifying my routine. The Beauty by Earth Self-Tanning Lotion Set lets me confidently glow whenever and wherever I choose.

Purchase the Lotion SetThe Art of Letting GoWhat’s holding you back from true freedom? In this week’s podcast, we explore the transformative power of letting go.

We’ll discuss identifying what to release, overcoming the fear of letting go, and distinguishing between healthy and limiting attachments. I’ll share personal stories of how releasing has led to growth and freedom in my own journey.

Join me to discover how letting go can unlock your full potential and lead to a life of true freedom.

Listen to The Podcast// TheEDIT

A weekly digital magazine by the School of Self-Image

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Listen to the Full Episode:Transforming Your Life with Intentional Language

Words have more power than we give them credit for, not only in copywriting but in our everyday lives. This discussion revolves around the profound impact that words have on our mindset and actions. One of the key takeaways is the transformative power of shifting our language from "I want" to "I am." This simple change can significantly alter how we perceive our aspirations and ultimately influence our behaviors.

Host Tonya Leigh welcomes special guest Jamie Palko, the behind-the-scenes copywriter for the School of Self-Image. Jamie shares her journey back to copywriting, highlighting the power of setting clear goals and the excitement of reconnecting with her passion. The conversation reflects on the serendipitous moments that brought Jamie to the podcast, where she first learned about the School of Self-Image. Join them as they explore the magic of wordsmithing and how it has brought them together in this full-circle moment.

Episode Details:00:10 - Jamie's Full Circle Moment

01:32 - Jamie's Journey Back to Copywriting

02:23 - The Power of Words

04:55 - Transitioning Between Projects

05:16 - The Role of a Copywriter in Content Creation

05:47 - The Impact of Words on Personal Life

08:35 - The Shift from "I Want" to "I Am"

10:35 - The Energy of Words

12:17 - Words Carry Energy and Meaning

13:00 - The Pygmalion Effect and Setting Expectations

14:47 - Reframing Nervousness as Excitement

16:47 - Teaching Mindset to Children

19:05 - Speaking from Your Future Self

20:02 - Overused Words: Should and Overwhelmed

23:19 - Shifting "Have to" to "Get to"

28:38 - Practicing New Ways of Speaking

32:47 - The Power of Words in Creating Your Life

Useful Resources: Click HERE to join the Membership * Click HERE for a FREE download * Click HERE* to sign up for our weekly newsletter, The Edit

Connect with Master Life Coach Tonya Leigh: * Click HERE to follow our Instagram * Click HERE to visit our website * Click HERE to visit our Facebook group * Click HERE to follow our TikTok * Click HERE to subscribe to our YouTube channel DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:Tonya Leigh:

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I am so excited about today's episode because we have a very special guest with us. This is a woman who is working so hard behind the scenes, and yet no one ever really gets to see her face or know that they're hearing from her because she is the copywriter for the School of Self-Image, Jamie Palko. Welcome to the podcast.

Jamie Palko:

Hello. Thank you for having me.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah, I'm so excited to have you.

Jamie Palko:

I am excited to be here, and I really have to say it's very much a full circle moment for me, because I can remember the first time I ever learned about you or heard about the School of Self-Image was on this podcast. And I can remember sitting at my kitchen counter eating lunch with my lit candle and listening to episodes. So, to be here is very exciting and special and thanks for this opportunity.

Intro: Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, Master Life Coach, Tonya Leigh.

Tonya Leigh:

You're so welcome. I'm so happy we found each other. That's how I feel.

Jamie Palko:

I know. Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

It's crazy how the world works. It's so fun.

Jamie Palko:

It really is. It's totally true. But I feel like I did a little bit of word-smithing to help make this happen.

Tonya Leigh:

Oh, well, that's what we're talking about today.

Jamie Palko:

Yeah, it's very cool. So, I joined the team last year, towards the end of last year. And earlier in the year, I had made the decision that I wanted to come back to copywriting, and I was very much of the mindset, "I'm going to write this down. This is going to be my goal and I want to get back to copywriting." And so, I wrote that down, I think it was February or March of last year that I wanted to get back into copywriting, and it remained top of mind for me. So then when I saw that you were hiring, it was like, "Oh yeah, well obviously this is it and obviously I'm going to get this job." And I did. So, I really do feel like those words that I spoke to myself and wrote that down and really sort of lived and breathed those for those couple of months, made this happen.

Tonya Leigh:

That is the power of words, which is what this episode is all about.

Jamie Palko:

It is.

Tonya Leigh:

It's so fun. So, before we jump into the power of words, I think some people may be curious what it's like to be a copywriter and, maybe more specifically, a copywriter for the School of Self-Image. So, can you just give us a little day to day of what your life is as a copywriter?

Jamie Palko:

Yeah, absolutely. It's definitely different being a copywriter for the School of Self-Image than it is in my previous experience as a copywriter. I worked previously for QVC and I was a copywriter for them, and that really is writing and selling stuff every day, a bracelet, a computer, a popular set. So here, what I think is just really cool is that my days look different every single day of the week. I say I'm a copywriter, but I also feel like a content writer because I do get to support the School of Self-Image and the members and the lessons and your teachings. And so that's really cool and special and something that's different.

Because I think when people think copywriting, they think of selling things. So yeah, my day looked different depending on what I'm working on, what we're working on. I think this is a much more collaborative environment than anything that I've worked in before in the writing sphere. So, we could be in a meeting talking about a program that we're working on, or we could be developing something for social media, we could be talking about things going on in the membership. So day to day, I am at my computer and writing. I do find that sometimes my best work is if I'm out and taking a walk. So, you'll often see me on Slack saying, "Out for a walk," and that's where I can really-

Tonya Leigh:

Which we encourage.

Jamie Palko:

Yes, which, and I appreciate, because that's where I get my wheels spinning on the notes on my phone, speaking stuff and writing it down so that I remember it when I come back and sit down. So, it's just been really fun and exciting and different. Yeah, and every day I just have something different to look forward to, which was really exciting and helps to keep that creativity fresh and me really invested in what we're talking about, what's going on in the community. And I think that that helps for me a lot.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah, I feel like of everybody on the team, you're probably the one that gets whiplash the most because Jamie will be working on project A and then project B will come up that feels urgent, and we throw it to her. And I'm sure, this could be a whole different podcast, but your ability to transition from one thing to another is unparalleled. It's a gift and I appreciate it so much. And you're always willing. You're always willing.

I think when you came on, the job title was Copywriter, and I think you so beautifully said it, it's more about just creating content for members, for potential members. So, you're so gifted and we love, love having you. And when I was thinking about this episode, I had planned originally to do it just by myself. And then I thought, "No, I need the queen of words to come onto the podcast with me." Because you are dealing with words every single day, not only for the School of Self-Image, but in your own life. And I'm really curious to hear from you. Do you have an example of how the power of words has actually changed your life?

Jamie Palko:

Yeah, absolutely. I think what's really cool and interesting about this job, and I said it is so different than previous copywriting jobs that I've had, is that I am in it with the team and I get to see what goes on behind the scenes with our members. And so I really get to experience what they're excited about and what they're doing and what they're accomplishing. And yeah, it's really just cool to see how their words can completely transform themselves. And when I sat and thought about what word has really changed my life, one thing immediately popped into mind. And anyone who has been in this sphere for any amount of time or is a member, I really don't think that they'll be surprised to hear that it is, "I am." Right? You say all the time those are the two most powerful words. So yes, it is two words. So, I hope that you'll give me a pass on that. But it really has changed my life, how I show up.

And I can give you an example. I was into journaling before I started, and when I started I was like, "Okay, yeah, I'm going to get into journaling more because that's the vibe here and I'm here for it." But until I really started to get into the journaling practice that we do in the School of Self-Image, so the Daily Five, I would say things like, "I want to read more." Or, "I want to stop drinking so much coffee and drink more water," things like that. So really, I was in that energy of wishful thinking, this is nice in the future. And it felt good. It felt positive. It felt like something I should say. Should... We'll probably get to that, but nothing was happening. I would just say that and I didn't have those results that I was looking for, and I just was feeling like, "Oh, this isn't working out."

So when I really dove deep into the Daily Five and I'm like, "Okay, I am going to do it. It's written and I am going to go all in here," then instead of I want to up-level my life, that was a generic. All of those things were sort of leading to wanting to up-level my life. Then I decided that I was going to have an I Am statement that supported that. So I wrote this down, it is, "I am constantly up-leveling my life through my thoughts and daily goals to create and live a life I love." So, I shifted from that Want To to Am, and that really was the change, the light bulb moment for me, because instead of it being in my future, something I was hoping for, it became present and then I became an active participant in it. And then I started to see the results, so it was concrete. I had been wanting to do it for so long and my Apple Watch rings were like, "Girl, you ain't moving. What's happening?" You know what I mean?

Tonya Leigh:

Like, "But I want to."

Jamie Palko:

I want to.

Tonya Leigh:

That is actually, let's talk about that for a moment. That is such a powerful example because, "I want to," seems like a positive statement.

Jamie Palko:

Yeah.

Tonya Leigh:

It seems like, "Oh, I'm doing something. I'm wanting,." But when you're wanting, you're not having, you're not being. I love how you said it. It's still in the future. It's something out there versus, "I am working towards, I am practicing," because I think maybe it's hard for people to go immediately to already being there. Like I am a woman who drinks eight glasses of water every day, and you have so much evidence that you haven't, but just replacing, I want to drink eight glasses of water to I am practicing drinking eight glasses of water. That's actually a really powerful reframe.

Jamie Palko:

Yeah. And it's not toxic positivity or anything like that. I'm not gaslighting myself in a way. It's true. I am up-leveling my life. If I'm drinking two huge mugs of coffee, and you've been on a meeting with me, you know how big my coffee mugs are. If I'm drinking two huge mugs and I'm drinking a small little glass of water and then I am drinking two small glasses of water, I am up-leveling my life. Have I hit a gallon of water a day? No, but it's true, I am doing that. I am taking those steps.

And it felt less like those to do's, that I wasn't feeling so bogged down by them and I wasn't feeling like I was tricking myself or fooling myself. And it was able to let me visualize and see and celebrate those small things. If I walk 9,000 steps a day instead of 10,000, that's way more than it was back in March when it was 3000 a day. And so that was helpful. I mean, it really did change everything. Like I said, I hit 10,000 steps a day pretty regularly. I'm one book away from reading 50 books this year

Tonya Leigh:

What? That's awesome.

Jamie Palko:

Yeah. So, yeah...

Tonya Leigh:

What's been your favorite book so far this year?

Jamie Palko:

Oh, this year, I got really into fantasy books this year. So, I read that A Court of Thorns and Roses, and that's a whole big series. So, some of those books were 900 pages, which that's a dedication. But those were really cool and different and something sort of that surprised me this year.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah. Going back to words, I think it's important to acknowledge that words carry energy.

Jamie Palko:

Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

Why are we even talking about this? Words carry energy because of the meaning that we attach to the word. And one of the things, I think, when you've been doing mindset work for as long as I have been, you can think, "Oh, what else is there to learn?" Well, we have human brains and our brains are always spouting out the most ridiculous things to us. But I just taught the class for next month for the membership, and we're talking about mindful excellence. And for the members who have been doing this work for a while, I was like, "I want you all to pay attention even to the details of your sentences," because that's what thoughts are. It's just a collection of words that we give meaning to, and the meaning can give us energy and fill us with positivity and help us take great action, or it can do the opposite.

And one of the examples that I gave is I was with Fonz last year, or two years ago, when we were in Denver. So probably two years ago, and I'll never forget, it was a period where we have a lot going on, which turns out we always have a lot of stuff going on. And I remember being in the car with him and saying, "I have so much to do." And he said, "Let's just take 'so much' out of this sentence." And I replaced it with, "I have things to do." It seems so minor, but I guess that's an adverb. So much would be an adverb? I think. So anyway.

Jamie Palko:

Your guess is as good as mine.

Tonya Leigh:

It's like an intensifier, right?

Jamie Palko:

Yeah, for sure.

Tonya Leigh:

It's adding a quantity that freaked my body out and just removing, "So much," to, "I have things to do," instantly brought me relief, two little words, so much. Just deleting them gave me so much relief. And I was even thinking about how sometimes we are like, "Oh, I'm having such a bad day," or, "I'm having such a frustrating day." What if we just took the adjectives out and we're just like, "We're having a day."

Jamie Palko:

Having a day.

Tonya Leigh:

It makes you feel so much better. Or even maybe it just gives you a little relief in the moment.

Jamie Palko:

Yeah, I think it does something to your brain. You don't have that attachment to that word, like, "I'm so busy." I'm very mindful of saying that if, like in the copy that I use in the membership, let's say we're sending out a newsletter and I'm like, "Oh, it's the busy holiday season." And then I'm like, "Well, do I really want to tell people it's busy?" What is that feeling that someone who is reading that is going to have?

Tonya Leigh:

Well that's like... Have you heard of the Pygmalion Effect?

Jamie Palko:

No. Tell me more.

Tonya Leigh:

Basically, the Pygmalion Effect is this phenomena in which when you set expectations for people, higher expectations, they'll look into it.

Jamie Palko:

Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

And that's really interesting. I wasn't planning to talk about this, but even the words you speak to other people, how that affects them if they're not super mindful, super aware. And it makes me think about when Sarah was probably, Sarah, my daughter, she was probably about eight, I had gone to this mastermind and she had been doing very poorly in math. And I'll never forget her calling me while I was at this mastermind and she was about to go in to take a math test, and she was so nervous and she was so afraid. And I spoke to her at the level of where she was. I got nervous and afraid with her.

And I'll never forget talking about it with my mastermind and this older woman, who had children, she pulled me into the bathroom. She was like, "I want you to notice how you're seeing Sarah as if she's in a small pot. You've planted her in this small pot and you need to plant her in the forest and let her grow with the words you use." And so I remember calling her back and saying, "Listen babe, you are going to do amazing on this test. You've studied, you've worked hard. You are going to do great on this test. And even if you don't, it's okay. You're going to learn." And I just, with my words, set a whole new expectation for her and she ended up acing that test. And I was like, "The worst we use with other people." I love that you think about that when you're writing copy.

Jamie Palko:

Yeah. And it's interesting that you brought that up because I had a very similar experience with my son a couple of weeks back. He's playing football this year and they have their playoff game. And so they were in the playoffs and he came to me and he's like, "Do you think I have anxiety? Because I just get really nervous before my games." And we talked about it and I could tell that it was nervous, but he just had picked up that word anxiety from somewhere and he was telling himself that. And he wouldn't eat before games, which isn't great for his performance. And he was really withdrawn and forgetful and all sorts of things. It was really impacting him leading up to it. And so we sort of had that conversation and I said, "It really sounds to me like some nervousness, but also it sounds to me like you're excited. You're excited for the game, and you have the butterflies and the pounding heart."

And to me, yeah, you could say that you're nervous, but we could also say that you're excited. And so then even whenever we were talking to him, instead of, "You nervous about the game?" like, "Are you excited about the game?" And we decided, let's talk to him in that way and frame his feelings in that way for him. And yeah, I mean, it really has been a world of difference in how he's showing up, his demeanor beforehand. So, it is really cool.

And I do think that that's something that I love to be able to give, especially I have three boys, and I think there's not a lot of feelings talk all the time. And definitely this mindset work isn't something that we teach kids growing up, but I'm so grateful that I know it and can in a way help them start to see those things for themselves and change the way that they talk to themselves, they see situations so that hopefully in the future they can go forward and just benefit from that as they grow up. But I love that visual of planting Sarah in a small pot versus out in the forest. So good.

Tonya Leigh:

But I think about how we do that to ourselves. And I think the way we do it is we look around at what has been, and that becomes our expectation of ourselves. So we can't outgrow what has been, and then we speak from that level. We look at it and the words we use mirror where we are right now. And one of the classes is in the membership and it's a really powerful class. I don't know if you've looked at it, but it's speaking from your future. How would your future self speak about this? What would your future self tell you right now that will help you meet her in the future? And that all comes down to a collection of the words that we use or against ourselves. And so often I think we subconsciously speak against ourselves. I don't think we mean to.

Jamie Palko:

No.

Tonya Leigh:

We just do it by default. We just keep repeating the same words over and over and over. I think one of the most over... Well, let me ask you, what do you think one of the most overused words for women are?

Jamie Palko:

I come back to, should, right? I come back to, should. And that to me feels like it feels stifling. Or, have to. Those things. Like, "I have to maintain my weight or I have to have a sparkling house," or those kinds of things. That to me feels like it really prevents me from going out and expanding and seeing what's possible for myself. And I love, I don't know if you and Laura both say it, but, "Stop shouldn't-ing all over yourself." For sure. So, that would be my pick. What about, what do you think?

Tonya Leigh:

That's so good. I was going to say, it's a word I hear a lot and I've often used it in the past, and I just stopped saying it, is overwhelmed. "I'm overwhelmed," overwhelmed, overwhelmed. And have you all noticed, the more we tell ourselves we're overwhelmed, the more overwhelm we experience. You cannot take enough action to get you out of a state of overwhelm.

Jamie Palko:

Right. Well, I think what's interesting too is because, and you talk about this a lot, is you're looking for that evidence then. And that's what you'll see, right? When you tell yourself, "I'm overwhelmed. I'm so busy." You're like, "Oh, well, I have to run my kids here. Or I have three meetings." And then you're finding that evidence. Can you tell yourself, "I'm working on work-life balance."? And then you'll find those examples of where you're doing that. "I get to go and take a walk and think about what's going to be needed from me for this particular project." So yeah, I think that it really, because it sort of laser beams you to finding those pieces of evidence of that thing that you're telling yourself all the time in your life, for sure.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah. It's the reticular activating system.

Jamie Palko:

Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

It's doing its job all day, every day. Or if we want to get spiritual, I guess you could say, it's like Rumi, "What you seek is seeking you."

Jamie Palko:

Yeah.

Tonya Leigh:

And unfortunately, a lot of times we're subconsciously seeking the very things we don't want with those two words, like, "I am," I am overwhelmed. It's changing, even going back to the example of, "I have so much to do," that creates a lot of overwhelm, versus, "I have things to do." That feels a little more positive. And therefore when I'm in that place, I can think more clearly, I feel like I am a little bit more productive, and then I start spinning in a different direction, in a more positive direction, all because of words. It's all a collection of words.

Jamie Palko:

Yeah. I even think, have to, "I have to."

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah.

Jamie Palko:

And, get to. I get to go and pick up my son from football. Something he loves doing. It keeps him active, all those things. It makes you look for those different aspects of it. And it feels different to me.

Tonya Leigh:

Well, it feels more, one, it makes you feel like you're a prisoner to your own life.

Jamie Palko:

Yeah.

Tonya Leigh:

Like, "I have to do this." Do you? Is someone holding a gun to your head, telling you to go pick up your boys?

Jamie Palko:

No.

Tonya Leigh:

The reality is you're choosing to do it.

Jamie Palko:

Yeah.

Tonya Leigh:

And one, I feel, empowers you and the other one disempowers you. It's like if you're going to do something, choose to do it. Because you're choosing to do it anyway.

Jamie Palko:

Yeah.

Tonya Leigh:

So, with your words and your feelings.

Jamie Palko:

Absolutely. And I think it does, it puts you in a state of more gratitude. I've heard you talk about this when you were washing the dishes and you're like, "I have dishes. I have food. I have running water. I have all those things. I have to do the dishes." I'm side-eyeing my husband who's watching football or whatever, instead of I am so grateful. This is not something that everyone has, for sure. I'm still side-eyeing him, I'm sure at some point.

Tonya Leigh:

Totally. So is most of women in the world. Sit up and help. So, I was thinking about today's episode and I really wanted to give the listeners something that they can think about, something that they can use in order to begin to elevate the power of the words that they use. And I thought it would be really fun for us to have them think about their lives as if they are a brand, which we all are, by the way. We all are a personal brand, a collection of values that we hold, the way that we see the world. But sometimes you may be unhappy with your brand because you didn't create it on purpose. It's something that just sort of happened. You're like, "Oh, I guess this is who I am."

But one of the things that we just recently did is that we recreated the entire School of Self-Image brand guide. And part of that is we have a whole, it's two or three pages of copy, the words that we use, the tone that we want, the tone of the company, I guess you would say. And I thought it would be fun for us to actually have the listeners to think about creating a brand copy guide for themselves. What are your thoughts about that?

Jamie Palko:

Yeah, I think that is so cool because I know how helpful it is for me. In my lay life I don't speak in the same way as I would when I'm in SOSI mode or in School of Self-Image mode. So, it's so helpful to me. I think it would be so fun and it would be so interesting to explore what would be your tone of voice. That's something that we talk about. What would be some phrases that your brand would? What's your tagline? What would your tagline be? How fun is that? And I think writing it down too, it really solidifies that and makes a difference. So, I think this is a super fun idea and I love it.

Tonya Leigh:

Well, it's really interesting because you helped create the guide. The whole team got together, we answered a lot of questions, but you just said something that was really interesting. You're like, "This isn't me outside of work," but when you come into the School of Self-Image, it's like you take that on.

Jamie Palko:

Yeah.

Tonya Leigh:

I think that's really powerful because a lot of women are going to be saying, "But this isn't who I am." But you came in and you practiced it, where now I don't have to hardly ever give you feedback. You get it. You're living it, you're feeling it, you're in it. And I think that's what it's like to change your tone, to change the words that you use. You repeat it over and over and over, and eventually you're like, "Oh, maybe you're just thinking like SOSI when you're with your husband doing the dishes." Who knows?

Jamie Palko:

Sure. Yeah. No, I think that's so interesting because I do, it did take a while. I mean, when we first started working here, there were a lot of times where you and I were having a lot of back and forth conversation, and it was like that awkward in between. I was trying to figure out how to write and speak in a way that was aligned with the brand, and it didn't feel natural, and it was obvious. So, I think that's an important caveat when you're thinking about like, "Okay, let me create a brand guide." Maybe if you're wanting to change where you are, it's not going to feel the greatest right at the beginning. You're not going to be like, "This is seamless. This is me. It's easy." It will feel a little bit strange maybe, and that's okay. Nothing is-

Tonya Leigh:

Oh, and people will have things to say about it.

Jamie Palko:

Oh, for sure.

Tonya Leigh:

People will have things to say. I think that's a really important point too. Like, "That's not who you are. That doesn't sound like something you would say." But eventually, over time, they're like, "Oh, this is you. This is what you're doing now." That's so good. This is a fun exercise. What would you say, in your life right now, if we were to read your brand guide, what would you say the tone, three words, the tone of your copy to yourself would be?

Jamie Palko:

I have gone through and done a lot of work on figuring out what my values are, and authenticity is so important to me. So, it would definitely be authenticity. It's not like I don't sugarcoat things, but I don't ever want anyone who's speaking to me to feel like I think I'm better than them. So, authenticity is one of them, for sure. Balance is another thing, although I was listening to, I think Laura was doing a coaching call the other day and she was talking about how harmony feels a little bit better, so I might upgrade that. Did you ask for three things?

Tonya Leigh:

I did. So we have authenticity, balance...

Jamie Palko:

And trustworthiness. I am not out here trying to fool people, trick people. I'm out here trying to be as authentic as possible. I want people to know that they absolutely can trust me, and I'm just trying to create that elusive... I shouldn't use that word. I'm trying to create that balance in my life, that harmony in my life, and in a way that's as authentic as possible.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah. Yeah. And so it's really interesting having those three words in front of you will then determine how you speak to yourself and how you speak to others. There's an intentionality that comes. Part of a brand guide as well, you said it earlier, are, what are the things that you want to say and be known for? What are the statements that when we are around you, it's like, "Oh, we always know Jamie's going to tell us we can do it." Or mine is, "There is no hurry." Right?

Jamie Palko:

Yeah.

Tonya Leigh:

Come up with your phrases.

Jamie Palko:

Oh geez, I might need your support here.

Tonya Leigh:

Well, you don't have to do it right now. It's just something for us all to think about. What do you want to say to yourself all of the time? What are the things that you want to say to other people and really become known for? I think that's a really interesting one. And then the opposite of that is what are the things that you rarely or never want to say?

Jamie Palko:

Yeah, it's so interesting because I think that that is something we spent a lot of time on that when we were going through the brand guide. And it's just funny how you have a five minute in depth heart-to-heart, people are passionate about conversation about a single word. We don't say X. So, I think those are really interesting things to think about. I feel like I need to spend some time doing the brand guide project or trying that out for my own life because I think about how helpful that would be, how supportive that would feel for me. And in telling myself how I want to show up every day, it really feels like it would be so supportive. So, I love this idea that you came up with. I think that I'm hopeful that listeners will find that helpful and fun as well to really dig into that.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah, because I was thinking about this. I'm like, "We do it for companies. We do it for brands." Why? Because there's an intentionality. And to me, I think a beautiful life is about being intentional and we can do it for ourselves as well. I want to go through this for myself. I know one of the words that I don't ever want to say is overwhelmed. That just never leads to a productive outcome. Never. I never want to say that word. So, I find myself wanting to use that word, and it forces me to come up with a different word. I'm like, "Nope, we don't say that around here. We say, 'My life is full right now. I have things to do right now.'" But for me to identify as an overwhelmed woman has never, ever led to me being more productive, happier, feeling more calm, more at peace. And so that's one word, as an example, that just doesn't belong in my brand guide. It just doesn't belong.

Jamie Palko:

Yeah. I do notice myself saying a lot when people, "How's it going?" And I'm like, "Living the dream." That's my go-to phrase. And I think about not only how it's the tone, really, my sarcastic tone, how that makes me feel, but I think about if my kiddos are around, how does that make them maybe feel? Like I'm being sarcastic about enjoying my life? But it's sort of just a default for me, because I can be sarcastic at times. So, that's something that I definitely would like to put in the, "This is what I'll no longer say and no longer that will be my default answer." I am practicing no longer saying that. So, I think I have to come up with an alternative for that.

Tonya Leigh:

I like, "Living the dream."

Jamie Palko:

Yeah. But see, it's your tone.

Tonya Leigh:

But I guess it's the energy behind it, right?

Jamie Palko:

Yeah, absolutely.

Tonya Leigh:

It's always the energy. If it's of sarcasm, that's very different versus the conviction of, "I'm living the dream." Well, that's so, so interesting. And when everybody's thinking about their tone, when you're writing copy, there's all different types of tones. There's empowered, there's confident, there's feminine, there's sophisticated, there's down to earth. Think about the tone that you want to be known for and how you communicate to yourself more importantly, but also to other people. And you can begin to train yourself in that certain tone. And I don't know, there's something about it. I just love the intentionality and knowing that we get to decide on the words that we use. We get to tell our brain how to think and the words to use. And I think that is one of the most empowering thoughts because our words really are creating our lives. Don't you agree?

Jamie Palko:

Oh, absolutely. I think it's, until you really stop to think about it, you don't realize that there is that connection. And then when you do, it's sort of mind-blowing. It's back to the energy. It's back to how you're creating evidence, how it helps you show up in your life in a way that you want it to. And you can really just make those small adjustments. Like, "So many things," "I have so many things to do." It's just getting rid of those two words.

Tonya Leigh:

Or even, I work a lot, me and Laura both with weight loss clients, and, "I am so overweight," versus, "I'm overweight." Feels a little bit better. We don't have to put so in there. We don't have to intensify the word overweight. And then we just use a thought ladder, which is one of the tools that we teach in the School of Self-Image. But everybody pay attention to your words. Your words are creating your life, and they're very, very powerful. So, thank you Jamie for coming on the podcast. This was so fun. I'm so glad everybody gets to meet our amazing copywriter who we love here at the School of Self-Image.

Jamie Palko:

Oh, thank you so much. Thank you for having me, and it was lovely to have this time talking to you and introducing myself to the world.

Tonya Leigh:

Yes, thank you so much. Take care everybody. I'll see you on the next episode. Cheers.

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Joyful Hustle. It’s not just a phrase. It’s a way of life.

At the School of Self-Image, it’s one of our core values.

But what is it really?

Joyful Hustle is:

Working hard with enthusiasm
Finding excitement in challenges
Celebrating every small win
Turning mundane tasks into games
Approaching goals with wonder and curiosity

It’s not about being happy all the time. It’s about finding purpose in the process.

When you’re in Joyful Hustle:

Work doesn’t feel like work
Time flies
Motivation comes from within
Creativity flourishes
Resilience builds

Sometimes, we lose our way.

Feeling burnt out? Overwhelmed? Out of sorts?

That’s a sign you’ve stepped out of Joyful Hustle.

But here’s the good news: Recognizing it is the first step back.

Remember: Joyful Hustle isn’t just about productivity. It’s a ripple effect that touches every part of your life.

So, ask yourself:

Am I embracing Joyful Hustle? Or just grinding through the days?

The choice is yours.

Choose joy. Choose hustle. Choose both.

Your Future Self will thank you.

With love,

P.S. If you’re in the membership, make sure you take part in our Joyful Hustle Practice this month and watch your joy and productivity soar.

Find Joy in the JourneySuccess is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.

~ Maya Angelou

Joyful Hustle transforms mundane tasks into opportunities for growth. It’s about finding purpose in your daily grind.

Set an intention each day to approach your work with enthusiasm – whether it’s in an office, at home, or in your community. Celebrate small wins and practice gratitude for the opportunities your work provides.

Remember, Joyful Hustle isn’t about what you do but how you choose to do it. Embrace the journey, and watch your productivity – and happiness – soar.

Sam Edelman Langley Lace Up SneakerWhen I think of Joyful Hustle, I imagine footwear that can keep up with our vibrant, full lives. These vintage-inspired sneakers from Sam Edelman embody that spirit perfectly. With a cushy footbed and chic design, they’re my go-to sneakers for those days when I have places to go (and need to saunter quickly).

Not only do I love how these sneakers look, but also how they symbolize the balance I strive for – comfort for the long haul, style for confidence, and versatility for whatever the day brings. They’re a reminder to step into each moment with positive energy and, of course, impeccable style.

Purchase the SneakersSignature Work Habits with My Executive AssistantThis week, my executive assistant, Abigail Schroeder, and I are diving into the art of Joyful Hustle. Discover strategies to infuse joy into daily tasks and create habits that boost productivity and happiness.

Abigail shares her journey of transforming her approach to work and how the Joyful Hustle mindset has impacted her life. We’ll also share practical tips for maintaining enthusiasm in a high-paced environment and integrating joy into your work life.

Listen to The Podcast// TheEDIT

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Listen to the Full Episode:Vote for Yourself: Five Ways to Champion Your Dreams

To truly champion yourself, it is essential to have a clear vision of what you want in life, much like political candidates who articulate their visions during campaigns. A well-defined vision serves as a guiding light, helping you navigate the complexities of your personal and professional journey.

Host Tonya Leigh poses a thought-provoking question: What if you applied the same passion and conviction seen in political campaigns to your own dreams and aspirations? Tonya explores five powerful ways to become your own champion, encouraging listeners to "vote for yourself" with enthusiasm. She shares her recent experiences from the SOSI tour in Europe and expresses excitement for the final stop in New York, emphasizing the importance of community and setting intentions for the upcoming year.

Tune in to discover how to champion your own goals and dreams!

Episode Details:01:29 - The Elephant in the Room: U.S. Election

02:24 - Cognitive Bias and Personal Growth

03:19 - Campaigning for Yourself

05:07 - Championing Your Own Vision

07:04 - Vision Questions and Exercises

10:07 - Avoiding Vision Shame

13:10 - Strong Beliefs and Convictions

18:09 - Finding Belief in Yourself

19:12 - Being Your Loudest Supporter

22:04 - Overcoming External Doubts

24:00 - The Power of Environment

25:47 - Writing Your Victory Speech

Useful Resources: Click HERE to join the Membership * Click HERE for a FREE download * Click HERE* to sign up for our weekly newsletter, The Edit

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Click HERE to subscribe to our YouTube channel DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:Today I have a very interesting question to pose to you. What if you brought the same passion, conviction and unwavering belief that you often see in political campaigns to your own dreams and aspirations? That's what we're talking about today. We're going to explore five powerful ways to become your own champion, to vote for yourself with the same enthusiasm that you'd vote for any candidate who promised to change your world. So let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello my friends. How are you doing? I'm doing great. I just came back from Europe. I was in London for the SOSI Tour, which was so much fun. If I saw you in London, it was such a pleasure. It's always fun to hang out with the SOSI community in person and to share stories and just to see you all in person sharing your before and afters. Just so much fun. And now I'm heading to New York this weekend for our final stop of the SOSI Tour. This is going to be our biggest one and I'm excited to sort of wrap up the year with this community and to set big intentions for next year. I'm really excited about 2025.

Now, today, I think we should talk about the elephant in the room. I don't care where you live in the world. You probably know that the US election is right around the corner. In fact, by the time this podcast drops, I think we'll just be a few days away from electing our next president. Now, this is not a political podcast. One of the things that SOSI members from all affiliations, all walks of life, all sides often say to me is that one of the things that I appreciate about the container that you've created is that we can coexist.We don't talk about politics. It's not the place.

But I was inspired to do this episode after a very fascinating concept that came to me when I was talking with a friend of mine. So let me just share what happened. We were in a group, and of course these days, politics usually comes up. Someone had made a comment about her candidate that she is supporting. She looked at them and she was like, "You know that's not true." And this person was like, "It is true. I can prove it to you." And so he whips out receipts. He has several sources that show that what she is saying is not true. And I watched her, and she refused to believe it. She started telling him, "That's not true. They got their facts wrong. That never happened." And it was so fascinating to sit there and witness the cognitive bias on full display.

And so I was thinking about it as it relates to her because the week prior to that, her and I were having a conversation about her business and I was trying to share things with her that were in support of her growth, supportive of her success, supportive of where she's going because right now she's having a very difficult time in her business. But everything I was saying was fighting for her possibilities and she just refused to believe it. She just had all of these deep, deep devotion to her own lack of success. And in that moment, all I could think about was, "Wow, if she would just campaign for herself like she's campaigning for her candidate, what a different world she would create for herself."

And I see it all of the time. I see people spending time on social media fighting with each other, fighting for their convictions of another person, fighting for their candidate, and not that there's anything wrong with that. I know that we have political activists. I completely support that. And my question to you is, do you campaign for yourself in such a way? Are you that convicted, are you that passionate about your own vision, about where you're going, about your own success, that you will stand in front of a group of people and argue to the death that you are a winner, that you are the champion of your own dreams? That is what I'm asking you today. Just think about that.

And one of the things that I know to be true is that it's often easier to campaign for someone else, and the reason being is that if they lose, it's not you. But yet you have all of this energy. We all want to champion for something. We all want to find our purpose, our passion, but I'm just inviting all of us to consider, why not let that be you and your life? Why not let it be your vision? And so today I want to give you five ways that you can not only champion for yourself, but vote for yourself in your life. Are y'all ready for this? Okay, let's go.

Number one, in order to vote for yourself, you need to know what you are voting for. Of course there's you, but there's also something bigger than you. And that thing is your vision. If you look at any candidate of any election, one of the things that they all possess is they have a vision. They have an idea of what they want the world to look like. And this is one of the things that I find a lot of women and men struggle with is that they don't have a vision of how they want their life to look like, how they want it to feel, what kind of world that they want to live in. And so they don't have anything to really rally for, to cheer for, to work towards. And then they wonder, "Why am I so frustrated? Why do I feel stuck? Why do I feel like I'm not going anywhere?" So the first thing you need to ask is, "Do I have a vision for my life? Do I have a vision for myself?"

So I want to give you some questions to ponder, and I really recommend that you get a journal out and just allow yourself to dream. Just allow yourself to write down whatever crazy thing may come to mind because those crazy things, I promise you, can turn into reality. One thing you can think about is your life as a magazine. And I want you to think about it being five years from now and you go to the grocery store and there you are on the cover of a magazine and there is a big headline. What headline would you like to read that would make you super proud?

When I think about the headline I would love to read five years from now, it would be something like Meet the Woman Behind 10,000 After Stories, because that's what I'm passionate about. I love helping women create their after stories, taking them from their before to their after, and that's what we do within SOSI. So think about you. What would you love to read? Maybe it's Weekend Musician Books First International Tour or Grandmother Gets College Degree Proving It's Never Too Late. What would you love to read about yourself as a headline five years from now?

Another way I like to approach getting your vision juices going, I guess you could call it, is to think about the no limit question. If you had all the money, time, and resources you need, what would you do? If you knew you couldn't fail, what would you do? If no one would judge you, what would you do? What comes up for you?

Another way you can think about your vision is thinking about your childhood dreams. What did you want to be before others influenced you? Which of those dreams still makes your heart beat faster today? And what elements of those dreams could be re-imagined for the person you are today?

I also love to think about our vision in terms of energy and just pay attention to what makes you lose track of time. What topics make you talk passionately? What work doesn't feel like work? Because these are clues to your best life. These are clues to the vision that I want you to be championing for.

And then finally, I love the legacy question, and that is, when you are 90 years old and you are looking back at your life, what do you want to be known for? What kind of impact do you want to have made? Who do you want to have helped?

Now, I know that when I ask questions like this, sometimes women can start to feel vision shame. They start to feel like what they want isn't big enough because maybe the answer to this question is, "I want to have had a positive impact on my family. I want to help my kids and my grandkids." And I want you to know that what you want is sacred. This is not a measurement according to society's standards. This is a measurement according to your own soul. And I don't want to throw this thing out there like, "Play big or go home," because what is big anyway? I think it's up to you to define what is big for you.

What I want as a coach for my clients is that they're playing their version of big, that they're going after things that are truly fulfilling, that truly feel aligned with their values, what's important to them. That's what matters to me. Who cares what other people think? People are going to judge your dreams no matter what. People are always going to have opinions about what you should or shouldn't want. You have to tune all of that noise out and decide what it is that you want. And if you want to vote for yourself, you need to know what you are voting for, and you can't know that unless you have a vision for your life.

The second way to vote for yourself is to build your campaign promises. It's time that you make bold declarations about who you are, what you deserve, what you want, and own that unapologetically. Stop waiting for permission to pursue your dreams. It is up to you to decide what are your promises to yourself, to the people in your life, to the world. What do you want to promise?

And the way I like to think about these promises are the standards that we hold. One of the concepts that I teach within the membership are standards. And I love to think about it like this, "I am a woman who." I want to think about that, "I'm a woman who takes care of herself. I'm a woman who deserves the best. I am a woman who does what she says she's going to do. I am a woman who serves at the highest level. I am a woman who loves and respects her clients. I am a woman who is passionate and fun. I am a woman who loves herself madly."

Bold promises equal bold results. A lot of times we are making these little tiny promises because we're so afraid of what people are going to think. What if they think I'm conceited? What if they think I'm too confident? Listen, if you want to win at the race of life, you've got to believe in yourself. And I always come at it from this angle. I want to be an example to other women. I think about my daughter. How do I want her to champion for herself? How do I want her to feel about herself? Well, how can I expect her to do it if I'm not doing it?

Along those same lines, you need to have really strong beliefs. If you look at any presidential candidate, no matter what country you're in, they all have very strong convictions and beliefs. And those convictions and beliefs will often repel people, and that's okay. But so often we don't stand in our own convictions because we're so afraid of that one thing. But what I've noticed is that if you don't do that, you're going to attract a lot of people where you don't get to be who you truly are.

For example, one of my big beliefs is that style really matters. What you wear matters. Now, a lot of women have come at me saying, "How dare you be so superficial? How dare you say that what you wear is that important? What are you saying? It's not about what's on the inside?" I've had it all and I have to allow that to be okay because I know the impact that style has had on my life and my clients' lives and I stand very convicted in that.

I also think self-image work is the work that is most important in the personal development world. Coaching really boils down to your self-image. Self-image is everything. If you don't address that, you are going to struggle in every area of your life. You will constantly sabotage your efforts if you don't address your self-image because we will always come back to how we see ourselves always.

I also believe that coaching is one of the most important skills and tools that are available to all of us and that we should all learn. I cannot imagine my life without coaching tools. I cannot imagine where I would be without these tools. Coaching is one of the best investments you will ever make in yourself, and I stand by that 1000%. But there will be people that disagree with me. There will be people that tell me that coaching isn't worth it, that nobody needs a coach, and they can have that opinion. But I know from my own experience and from working with thousands and thousands of clients at this point, because I've been at this almost two decades now, I have seen it with my own eyes, and there's a reason why successful people, the majority of them have a coach.

And so I have these beliefs that I stand firm in. Now, it's easy to stand firm in beliefs when everyone around you is agreeing with you. But what about when they're not? That's when you have to double down on voting for yourself and eventually you stand firm in that and you will attract the right people into your life. So that's number two. Build your campaign promises.

Number three is be your own rally. Be your own cheerleader. I want you to show up for yourself with the same enthusiasm as you show up for some of these candidates that you're supporting. I want you to cheer yourself on, especially when it's hard. Again, it's easy to cheer yourself on when things are easy, when things are going your way, but it's when you're down, it's when you have felt, it is when it looks like it is not going to work out, that is when you need to dig deep and vote for yourself like you've never voted before. You have to act like you are down three points and you've got to rally and vote for yourself in those moments.

And having done this for many years now, I was actually coaching my Diamond group within the membership, and someone was asking me a similar question about what happens when you get in a funk? What happens when you've had success and now you're just not feeling it anymore and you don't know what you want and you're just feeling blah? And what I know to be true is that in life there are seasons and there are going to be seasons when you're down. It's not always roses and champagne and daisies and unicorns, y'all. There are seasons. But why? Because we're human beings with human brains and we're meant to feel negative emotion.

And so yes, we're all going to have seasons when we're down, but that's when we need to vote for ourselves the most. And it takes effort. It's true. An item at rest tends to stay at rest, and an item in motion tends to stay in motion. When you are down, it's like being at rest. You have to really spend more energy getting yourself up, but that's when you need it the most because once you're up and you got that momentum going, then it becomes faster. It becomes more effortless. You are just in motion.

So for any of you that are feeling down right now and you're like, "God, Tonya, I just don't feel like I'm worth voting for. Look at this. Look at this mess I have right now," listen, I want you to be like my friend with her candidate. I want you to just find anything that you can find to believe in yourself. Look for what you want to see. It's all available to us at any moment. We can find ways that we're terrible humans. We can find ways that we're amazing humans.

And it's not that I want you to ignore the things that you maybe want to work on, but I think about Carl Jung, a famous American psychologist. He says, "The interesting paradox is this. When I love myself as I am, then I can change." And when we're down is when we need to love ourselves the most. That's when we need to be our own rally. We need to love ourselves into change, and also be your loudest supporter.

I know this is hard, especially for women. Men don't seem to struggle with this as much as women do, but women have a lot of resistance tooting their own horn, so to speak. We want to be nice. We want to be accepted. We want to not come across as arrogant. We want to not ruffle any feathers. But what often happens is that we just fade into the background of our own lives.

Now, I'm not asking you to go out there and walk down your neighborhood street telling your neighbors how amazing you are. I am asking you that you do that with yourself, that you cheer yourself on. If you have to get up and look in that mirror every morning and be like, "Listen girl, here we go. Today is going to be an amazing day. You know why? Because you are amazing, because you have a vision, because you have things to accomplish and you've done it before. You can do it again. And I know it's hard right now for you, but remember who you are. You are smart, you're capable, you're beautiful. Let's go." That's what I'm talking about. Give yourself a good pep talk, especially when you're down.

The fourth way to vote for yourself is to invest in your victory. Put time and energy where your dreams are. Back yourself up like donors back their candidate. Make choices that show that you are betting on yourself. I think about this client who probably four years ago, maybe a little less than that, it was right when I opened up the School of Self-Image membership, she came to me and she was like, "I really want to join, but I just don't have the money right now." And I laughed because I know that she just came back from a trip to Europe.

Nevertheless, she ended up joining two years later. And today her life is so much better. Within a very short amount of time by betting on herself, not just her membership fee, but putting the time and energy into herself, she has created so much change in her life. And I see this often. Women will say they want to do something, but then they don't. And I'm always very curious about that. What is really holding you back?

There have been so many times that I have invested not only money, but time and energy into something not knowing if it was going to pay off, not knowing if it was going to work out. But what I did know is that I was going to work out, that I was going to be okay no matter what, and believing in myself at that level has helped me to create so much change in my life. It's helped me to accomplish so many things.

And that is what I want for all of you. I want you to be the kind of woman who bets on herself. And it's really hard when other people aren't betting on you. I've had examples in my own life where I have wanted to do something and the people that love me the most are the ones telling me, "I don't think you should do that. I don't know about that. That's a lot of money. I don't know about that. That's a big risk." And what I realized is that they're projecting their beliefs onto me. And so if I keep listening to them, I'm going to stay where I am. We're all going to stay at the same level.

But what I've noticed is that when I just go within and I bet on myself, I evolve to the next level and then those people are like, "Wow," and then they evolve. And then I've had people in front of me do the same thing where they're doing stuff and I'm like, "I don't know about that. That's pretty risky," and then they do it and then I'm like, "Oh, that's what betting on yourself looks like," and then they become an example to me of what's possible.

We all have limitations, every single one of us, that we have placed on ourselves. And that's why we need to do what number five is all about. We need to build our dream team. If you want to vote for yourself, build your dream team. Surround yourself with people who believe in your vision. Surround yourself with people who are doing or have done what it is that you want to do. Find mentors that see your potential. Create a support system that champions for your success. You need to connect with others who dare to dream big.

Environment is powerful, folks. When you surround yourself with the right people, it becomes so much easier to change how you think. It's almost like those limitations that you've placed on yourself will just start to fall away because you don't see examples of them anywhere around you. You're like, "Wow, I've been wearing this ugly dress that no one else is wearing. Maybe I should change my dress." It becomes so much easier.

That is one of the best ways to vote for yourself. Surround yourself with compassionate, high-achieving, loving, successful people who really all they want is to see each other do well. That's the kind of people I love being around. When I look around at my friends, I just want them to be happy and healthy and successful, whatever that looks like for them. And so whenever I see them falling away from my vision of them, I'm like, "What's going on?" Don't forget who you are. Don't forget what you want. I know it may be hard right now, but remember who you are.

Environment is so powerful. Can you change in your current environment? Yes. But if you want to fast track your results, get into a new environment, and sometimes that new environment might be listening to a new podcast, reading new books. You can create your virtual dream team. But as you begin to evolve your self-image, you're going to be attracting different people into your life. And that, my friend, is how you vote for yourself. You have a vision for your life. You build your campaign promises. You become your own rally. You invest in your victory and you build your dream team.

Now, I have a fun challenge for all of you. Okay, you ready for this? I've done this for myself and it's really a fun exercise. I want you to write your victory speech. I'm serious. Please do this for me. You will thank me later. So what I want you to do is I want you to go into the future. It can be a year from now. It can be two years from now. You get to decide the timeline. I love a year. That's usually where I love to go out to. And I want you to act as if everything that you've wanted to create over the year has happened. And I want you to imagine you're standing on a podium, on a stage, and you are delivering your victory speech. What are you going to say? Who are you going to thank? And most importantly, who have you become?

I hope you all have enjoyed this episode. Have a beautiful week, and I will see you on the next episode. Cheers.

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Listen to the Full Episode:Finding Peace: Techniques to Release Attachments and Anxiety

In the journey of personal growth and freedom, awareness serves as the foundational step. Becoming aware of our thoughts, emotions, and attachments is crucial for breaking free from the cycles of worry and anxiety that often trap us.

Host Tonya Leigh dives into the transformative art of letting go, a topic she has passionately coached and personally navigated. Drawing from her own experiences and insights, Tonya emphasizes the importance of releasing attachments to ideas, people, and things, which can often lead to suffering and anxiety. She shares a pivotal moment during a vacation in Paris, where a friend's advice and the book "Awareness" by Anthony de Mello sparked a profound realization about the roots of unhappiness.

Tune in to discover powerful techniques and wisdom from spiritual teachers and psychologists that can help you cultivate calm and break free from the cycle of worry.

Episode Details:01:19 - The Concept of Letting Go

01:39 - Awareness by Anthony DeMello

02:02 - Attachment Causes Suffering

03:29 - Happiness and External Factors

05:37 - Embrace Reality as It Is

06:19 - Importance of Self-Observation

07:34 - Love Without Attachment

09:10 - Letting Go of the Ego

10:19 - Letting Go of the Need for Approval

14:15 - Embracing Uncertainty

18:16 - Dedication vs. Attachment

20:55 - Fall in Love with the Practice

21:59 - Let Go of the Rope

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Click HERE to subscribe to our YouTube channel DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:Do you ever feel trapped by your own thoughts? Maybe you feel like you're not able to break free from the cycle of worry and attachment. Well, in this episode, we're going to explore some techniques to master the art of letting go, drawing wisdom from spiritual teachers and psychologists and ancient philosophies. So if you're worried, if you are feeling a lot of anxiety in your life, I think you're going to really, really appreciate today's episode. So let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello, my dear sweet friends. I have a very special topic for you today. It's something that I have been coaching a lot around. It is something that I have worked on myself in my life for many, many years and it has brought me so much comfort, so much focus actually, and a sense of calm. And I feel like right now in the world that we're in, we need more calm, and that is the art of letting go.

Many years ago, I was going through a very tough situation and I was actually on vacation with a friend in Paris as I was going through this. And I just remember her looking at me and saying, "Tonya, you've got to let go." And she referred me to one of her favorite books, which has become one of my favorite books called “Awareness” by Anthony De Mello. And I remember reading that book crying, just sobbing because I had this realization that all of my suffering was because of attachment, my attachment to ideas and people and things.

They were the root cause of my unhappiness. And after I read that book, I thought to myself, "This is the work. The work is letting go of these attachments, which will lead to more freedom." And I just want to be very transparent. I'm still in the practice of the art of letting go. But I wanted to share with you some of the points that I gained from reading this book. First, he talks about awareness is key. He talks about how people mostly live their life in this deep sleep-like unawareness.

The first step to letting go is becoming aware of our thoughts, our emotions, and our attachments. And this is a lot of the work that we do within the school of self-image. Many times we have to let go of our own identity to grow and evolve into the next version of ourselves. And that's very difficult because identity is deeply rooted and we subconsciously are working to prove it true all of the time. And so you can't change without awareness. It is very, very difficult, if not nearly impossible, you will just keep repeating the same old patterns living in what he calls a sleep-like state of unawareness.

The second point in that book is that happiness is not dependent on external factors. Happiness as is all emotion a result of our thoughts, what's going on within. Happiness does not come from our possessions, our achievements, or other people's approval. If that were true, the majority of us would be happy right now, because I am betting that you have certain things in your life that you once dreamt of. Maybe it's a house, maybe it's a car, maybe it's a business. But it was something that you once dreamt of and now you have it and you may not yet be happy, proving this theory true.

And there was probably a time in your life where you thought, "If I could only have this thing, I would be so happy." And now you have it and you're not. Why? Because happiness doesn't come from things outside of you. I bet you've achieved a lot. I bet you have gained other people's approval and yet you may not be happy.

The other thing that Anthony De Mello says in this book is attachments cause suffering, attachments cause suffering. And it's our fear of losing things that can cause suffering. We haven't even lost it yet, but we think about it. Just thinking about the possibility of losing a loved one, of losing your home, losing your job, losing your status, whatever. Something that we just imagine our minds can cause us to feel so much suffering. Now, I'm not here to say that when you actually lose something that you're supposed to be happy about it. Grief is a real thing and it's something that we will all go through at some point in our life. But a lot of us are creating what Martha Beck calls a dirty pain. The pain of our imagination, just thinking about losing something that we haven't even lost yet can cause us so much suffering.

He also says embrace reality as it is because so much of our suffering comes from us refusing to accept reality. But learning to see and accept things as they are rather than as we wish them to be, is crucial if you want to find peace in your life. Now, that doesn't mean accepting and giving up. It doesn't mean just surrendering. It means the truth of what is going on right now, the facts of your current situation and deciding from this place of acceptance what your next steps will be, what you're going to do from here. But what you resist persists, and if you spend all of that time fighting with what is, that is energy that you can't free up to focus on what can be.

He also talks about the importance of self-observation. He encourages us to observe ourselves from a non-judgmental point of view so that we can gain that insight and facilitate change. When I first start working with women within the membership and they're learning these tools, so often they'll find themselves discovering things and then they become their own worst critic. So many times they'll come to a call and say, "I know I shouldn't be thinking this. I'm so stupid to think this way. I should know this by now." And I let them know, "First of all, no, you shouldn't know it right now because if you should, you would. And it's okay that you don't know it right now, but now you do. Now you've had this state of awareness. What a beautiful thing. Can we just look at yourself as we would a child that we loved, a pet, that we loved someone or something that we love? Can we just observe you from that lens so that we can understand why? What's the deep underlying motivating factors that are causing you to do this so that you can then experience change?"

One of my favorite quotes by American psychologist Carl Jung is he says, the amazing paradox is this, when you accept yourself as you are, then you can change. Another point that he makes in this book is that to experience freedom, you need to love without attachment. This one is challenging, this one causes us a lot of suffering. But he talks about true love involves appreciating others without needing to possess or control them. And the statement that he uses is, "I want everything for you. I need nothing from you." And I know early on in my life I was quite the opposite. I'm like, "I love you and I want everything from you. And if you can't give me that, then I'm going to cause some problems up in here."

Because I didn't understand that love is something that I create from within. The only reason why I'm feeling love around a certain person is because of my thoughts about them and what they're doing. And when I discovered that, I realized, "Oh wait, I can feel love regardless of what this person's doing or not doing." And sometimes love of myself may mean me removing myself from this person because I just don't want to have to work on my thoughts that much. That's why environment is so important. So I am not saying you should just sit around with people who talk crap about you to your face, who are mistreating you, not at all. But what I'm saying is that you do cause yourself suffering when you need them to be different in order for you to feel love, you get to feel love all day every day, my friend, all day every day based on how you think. And that love needs to start with you. And again, sometimes the best way to love yourself is to remove yourself from certain people and certain situations.

The next thing that he talks about is letting go of the ego. This one's big. Many of our attachments are rooted in our ego-driven desires and recognizing this illusion of the ego can help in letting go. I was thinking the other day about my new home. I am so loving my new home. And I was thinking about the people who are experiencing devastating loss up in Asheville and western North Carolina and parts of Georgia, parts of Florida. And I'm recording this actually right before Hurricane Milton, so I don't even know the amount of devastation that that hurricane is going to cause. And I was thinking about that. I was thinking about what it would be like if just overnight something happened and I lost everything and it caused me to feel a lot of negative emotion because of the attachment, the attachment to things, the attachment of what my ego wants.

But I also have the awareness that even if I lost it all, even if tomorrow morning I woke up and everything was gone, I could still find some peace. I could still find something within myself to help me pick up the pieces and put it back together. Now, I'm not saying that would be easy. I would have to coach myself all day every day during that process. But that's what hanging on causes so much suffering. The art of letting go is just realizing the suffering that is caused when we're hanging onto these things, these ideas, these people, these things.

And the analogy that I often use when I'm coaching people is when I first learned to water ski, I would fall, but I would still hang onto the rope even though the boat is still going. Just physics says, I will never get up from that situation. But I would hang on because deep down there was some kind of reaction. This instinct, if I just hang on, maybe I can get back up. But it was never going to happen. I had to learn to let go of the rope. And in the letting go of the rope, I found myself in this very just peaceful state of being held by the water because I had a life jacket on and the boat was going to come back around and pick me up so I could just relax and let go. And that is my daily practice, you all.

Noticing when I'm hanging on to these thoughts, to these ideas, to the attachment of things. Just noticing and how much pain it causes, and knowing in those moments all I'm doing is hanging onto the rope of a moving boat flat of my stomach and it's hurting and all I need to do is let go, just let go. And yet it's so hard, the ego does not want us to let go. The ego wants us to have our way. It wants things to be a certain way, it wants these things. And yet in all of that, we experience so much pain and suffering.

The other thing Anthony De Mello talks about in his book is letting go of the need for approval. Think about how much suffering you experience because people don't approve of you, or you are living out of integrity trying to gain other people's approval, and that hurts just as bad if not more. What would your life be like if you did not need other people's approval? And I have a whole podcast on this. So if you search approval, School of Self Image, you'll find the podcast. And if this is something that you experience, if it's something you struggle with, I highly recommend that you go and listen to that episode.

But this is something I've been playing around with a lot. And the more I play around with it, the better life gets. The more free I feel, the more me I feel. The ability to just show up in the world as you truly are, sharing the things that you truly love, expressing yourself in a way that feels true to you. It is the most freeing thing in the world. And yet we hang on to this attachment for approval. What if you just practice letting that go? And I keep saying practice because it is a practice. When you have been conditioned a certain way and you've been doing things a certain way and you've been thinking in certain ways for so long, it is not an overnight success story.

It takes days and days and months and months and years and years of practice until one day you look in the mirror and you're like, "Oh my God, I'm feeling so good even though the world's chaotic, even though I don't know what tomorrow holds." And by the way, none of us do because life is all about uncertainty, but I feel a sense of peace. I feel a sense of calm. That's a result of practice, my friends.

And that's the last thing that he talks about, embracing uncertainty, accepting that life is inherently uncertain. And if you just accept that, you can begin to practice letting go of the need to control. And this one's a hard one for me. I have this deep belief, even though I know it's a bald face lie, that I can control certain things. If I tell my daughter enough to be careful, maybe she'll listen and the outcome will be different. If I take care of things, then maybe I can avoid certain things happening. And so we go around micromanaging, trying to control everyone, especially the people we love, which is so interesting because we don't want to lose them.

And yet nothing in life is certain. And I just know my brain and how my brain loves to go to worst case scenarios. It loves to entertain me losing the people I love, and I just have to practice letting go of that in the moment. I'm like, "But wait, they're all doing really well. They're all happy. Some of them are in the next room. It's all okay." But that's what our brains do. And so if your brain does that as well, just know you're not alone. Again, I've been practicing this for years and my brain still wants to go there sometimes. But the difference is with the awareness, I can just recognize it and I can refocus. And what I love to refocus on is what's real in this moment and in this moment, I've realized we're all okay. If we just come back to this moment, even if we're hurting, even if we're grieving, we're still okay.

It may not be amazing. It may not be extraordinary in the moment, but we're okay. I come back to the basics. The basics of presence, and the basics of just take a breath and then take another. Tune into my body, tune into my mind, gain that awareness of why I'm suffering. And sometimes with just awareness alone, things will shift. Now, sometimes I have to guide myself. I have to tell myself, let's redirect, let's refocus. But what I can offer you is that the practice does become easier, but you have to first realize the reason why you're suffering right now is most likely because you are attached to something or you fear losing something, which is also an attachment.

Now, one of the questions I often get asked is, "If you're living in this state of so much calm and peace, then how do you get things done?" Because so many people associate going after goals with attachment to outcomes. But I want to talk about the difference between dedication versus attachment. So dedication, I see as this committed focus on a goal, on a person, or a pursuit of some sort. Attachment is different because it's an emotional dependence on specific outcomes or possessions. So dedication is about the action. Attachment is about the emotional attachment, the emotional dependence.

Also, if you look at the motivation behind the two, dedication is driven by values, growth, and a meaningful contribution. Whereas attachment is often driven out fear, insecurity or this desire to control. If you look at the flexibility of dedication versus attachment, dedication allows for adaptation and change when necessary. Attachment is different. It tends to be very rigid and resistant to change. If we look at the emotional impact, dedication generally leads to fulfillment and positive emotions, whereas attachment results in anxiety and disappointment and suffering. This is a big one.

The outcome focus. Dedication emphasizes the journey and the effort. Whereas attachment is fixated on specific results or possessions. And that therein lies the difference. I have created a lot of success in my life, and when I look back at how I have done it, when I have been most unfulfilled and most anxious, it's because I was so focused on the outcome, was attached to it. When I've had the most fun and actually the most success in my life is when I've had this deep sense of dedication, where I just focus. I have the goal, I have the outcome that I've put out there, but all of my energy just comes back to being dedicated to this day, to this moment. How am I showing up today? What am I going to learn today? What obstacle am I going to overcome today? What am I going to create today? Who am I going to be today?

And when I focus on that, I will tell you that I suffer a whole lot less and have a whole lot more fun. This is one of the biggest things that I teach within the School of Self-image. I encourage every member to have a goal, a goal that delights them, that lights them up, and also requires them to grow, to evolve their self-image. And then I tell them, "You've done it. You've set the goal. Now I want you just to fall in love with the practice, be dedicated to the practice." And the practice is what we teach within the membership. And I encourage all of you to do the same.

This isn't an A through Z kind of process. This is an art. It's an art of awareness. It's an art of letting go in the moment, experiencing a little bit more calm, shifting your emotions a little bit. But over time, you will begin to see how much of your suffering isn't because of what's really happening. It's because of your attachments. And you have to practice letting go of the rope. When you're feeling anxious, when you're feeling worried, when you're feeling frustrated, let go of the rope and just watch your brain. Watch what's going on in your mind, and you will see very clearly why you're feeling the way you're feeling.

And the more you catch yourself hanging onto the rope and letting go, the better you're going to feel, and I'm going to bet the better results that you create in your life. Because all of that energy that we spend fighting with, what is all that energy that we spend worrying, resisting, that energy will be freed up to create your life intentionally and on purpose. Let go of the rope, my friends. I hope you have a beautiful, beautiful week, and I will see you on the next episode. Cheers.

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Soft jazz. A burning candle. A clear desk. Early morning. And a cup of coffee.

This is my recipe for peak productivity. But why does this particular combination work so well?

Let’s explore how our surroundings shape our ability to get things done.

Each element in my ideal workspace serves a purpose:

Soft Jazz: Blocks distractions without demanding attention
Burning Candle: Scents can boost alertness and concentration
Clear Desk: Reduces visual clutter, allowing for better focus
Early Morning: Fresh mind, quiet world, uninterrupted time
Coffee: Beyond caffeine, it’s a ritual signaling “work mode”

Our brains constantly process information from our environment. By creating a space that minimizes negative stimuli and maximizes positive ones, we set the stage for peak performance.

While jazz and coffee work for me, your ideal setting might differ.

The key is to identify what helps you enter a state of flow:

Sound: Music, white noise, or silence?
Lighting: Natural, warm, or bright?
Scent: What energizes or calms you?
Organization: How much order do you need?
Time: Night owl or early bird?

Experiment until you find your Sweet Spot. What works for others might not work for you, and that’s okay!

Once you create an environment that boosts productivity, you may notice improvements in other areas of life. Enhanced focus can lead to better decision-making, reduced stress, and a greater sense of accomplishment.

This week, pay attention to your environment when working. Notice what helps you focus and what distracts you. Then, make one small change to optimize your space for productivity.

Remember, you have more control over your productivity than you might think.

By crafting an environment that supports your best work, you’re setting yourself up for success in ways you never imagined.

Until next time, may your environments inspire your greatest work,

Aligning Your SurroundingsYour environment will eat your goals and plans for breakfast.

~ Steve Pavlina

While we often focus on our immediate workspace, our broader environment also plays a subtle yet powerful role in our productivity. Consider how your community, relationships, and digital landscape shape your output.

Are you:

Surrounding yourself with ambitious peers who inspire growth?
Cultivating relationships that energize rather than drain you?
Curating your digital environment by managing notifications and creating separate profiles for work and leisure?

Remember, productivity isn’t just about your desk - it’s about the entire ecosystem you inhabit. This week, examine your wider environment. Which elements nurture your goals, and which ones hinder them?

By aligning your broader surroundings with your aspirations, you set the stage for sustainable success.

Hatch Restore 2Peak productivity starts with quality sleep. That’s why I love how the Hatch Restore 2 smart sleep clock optimizes my rest and helps me to supercharge my waking hours. Its soothing sounds and gentle sunrise alarm create the perfect sleep environment, while a phone-free routine eliminates bedtime distractions.

Enhancing your sleep doesn’t just improve your nights – it transforms your days. With the Hatch Restore 2, you’re investing in your productivity around the clock, setting the stage for more focused, energized, and efficient days.

Purchase the Restore 2How to Create Productive SurroundingsWish you could supercharge your productivity? In this week’s podcast, we explore the art of crafting an environment that boosts your workflow AND your productivity.

I’ll delve into the psychology of how surroundings affect focus, share tips for optimizing your workspace, and discuss how to create a productivity-boosting routine. Plus, I’ll reveal my personal productivity hacks.

Whether you’re a busy professional or simply looking to get more done, this episode will equip you with strategies to reshape your surroundings and boost your productivity.

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Listen to the Full Episode:Watch the Full Episode:Mastering Productivity: Signature Work Habits with My Executive Assistant

Beginning and concluding your day effectively are essential practices that can significantly influence your productivity and overall mindset throughout the workday. Tonya Leigh and her executive assistant, Abigail Schroeder, explore the importance of these two bookends of the day and how they contribute to a more effective and fulfilling work experience.

Tonya opens the conversation by addressing a common question she receives: how she manages to get so much done. Tonya shares the story of how she found Abigail amidst over 500 applicants and highlights the importance of having a supportive team. Together, they explore effective work strategies, insights on collaboration, and the value of intuition in hiring.

Tune in to discover how to enhance your productivity and learn from Abigail's expertise in managing tasks and supporting a busy, thriving executive by creating a positive, effective work environment.

Episode Details:01:53 - Role of an Executive Assistant

02:27 - Abigail's Responsibilities

07:04 - The Four Ds Framework

09:16 - Abigail's Signature Work Habits

10:51 - Starting Your Day Well

13:26 - Self-Awareness and Acceptance

16:01 - Knowing Your Strengths and Weaknesses

20:10 - Writing Everything Down

25:08 - Prioritize with Focus and Rest

31:14 - Diffuse Mode of Thinking

37:58 - Most Impactful Work Habit

39:33 - Company Culture

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Click HERE to subscribe to our YouTube channel DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:Have I got a treat for you today? I often get asked, how do you get so much done? And the truth is I have a lot of incredible people around me, one of which is my executive assistant Abigail Schroeder, and I asked her to come onto the podcast to share some of her signature work habits. So get ready to learn and be inspired, and to meet my assistant. Let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Tonya Leigh:

Hello friends and welcome back to another episode of the podcast. I am so looking forward to today's episode because I have a very special guest for you. One of the questions that I often get asked is how do you get so much done? And I just have to tell you, I don't do it alone. I have a really great team around me and one of those people happens to be my executive assistant who I discovered almost, has it been a year and a half? Well over a year and a half ago. And I remember putting an add out on Indeed, not knowing what I was doing, and I got so many applicants. I think there was over 500 people that applied for this position. And there was one in particular that really stood out and I'm so happy I really honored my intuition and welcomed Abigail Schroeder to the team and she is here with us today to share her signature work habits. So welcome, Abigail. I'm so happy to have you on the podcast.

Abigail Schroeder:

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here and talk about signature work habits with you.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah, so I think before we get into talking about signature work habits, I think one of the questions that people are always intrigued about is what does an assistant do? I would love to hear just your take on what you do because it is a lot. You do a lot, not only for me but for the company. So can you just give us an overview of what you do, what your day looks like, which I don't think you have any one day that looks the same, but just tell us all the things about your role as an assistant.

Abigail Schroeder:

Yeah, like you said, no day is the same. I touch a lot of different facets of your life and the company. I think a good visual would be to mention, I don't even really remember where it came from, but you started calling me your second brain when you introduced me to people. Do you remember where that came from?

Tonya Leigh:

Yes. It just came from my brain. I'm like, oh, she is my second brain.

Abigail Schroeder:

And I feel like that's a really good visual because I would say I'm probably involved in, I don't know, 80% of your business and personal life, probably more than that honestly. And that doesn't mean I'm doing all the same things as you. It's more so if you are involved in something, I am there alongside of you in some way, shape or form. To talk about some specific tasks, I fall into a couple different categories. So like you said, no days are the same, but I tend to fall into a personal assistant category of helping with travel arrangements, small errands, financial support, appointment management. And then in my executive assistant category, task-wise is calendar management, communication with the team, liaising, task review, email management, researching things upfront, event planning, really you name it there. And then there's also the HR, finance compliance department, like employee relations, record management, benefit administration.

I have a lot of different roles. I think a helpful picture to paint would be to talk about my goals that I have that really shape my tasks. And I would say my two main goals in my role is to optimize your time and to support the overall vision you have for the company. And so that can look like in your personal life, doing your travel arrangements isn't just an administrative task for me. I take it on as anything that I am supporting you for. Over here is where you can spend more time in the company focusing on your zone of genius, which is the content creation and visionary side of things that you excel at, which saves you time. So that's what that optimization piece and goal comes in.

And then I'd say the overall vision piece at times is when I use it as a decision filter. So your goal for the company comes into play with our core values. Am I allowed to share those? I know we haven't really shared them.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah, let's do it.

Abigail Schroeder:

Which are joyful hustle, elevated simplicity, and mindful excellence. And so I use those often when making a decision or executing a task. And I ask myself either, am I myself exhibiting all of these things when I'm doing this task or are we as a company able to accomplish this project or task with those core values in mind? And so I would say those two things, optimizing your time and executing your vision through core values are my main goals that drive my tasks.

Tonya Leigh:

And as you're talking, I'm just thinking about the amount of time that you have saved me, which has allowed me to work on these other things such as serving clients, creating content, thinking about the team, thinking about where we're going. But I also just want to honor you because one of the things that you've brought into my life is being my guard rail, quite honestly, because I am a seven on the Enneagram. I am a quick start on the Colby. I am a visionary. And so you put that all together and I'm the one that shows up and I'm like, "Hey, let's do this, let's do that." And you're always the one to say, "Okay, this sounds amazing and let's really think it through. What's going to be the consequence? Can we do it well?" You just ask really good questions that calls me to pause and think, ah, maybe now's not the time to do that, or maybe we need to delay it a little bit. And so you have really brought that skill set to me, which I greatly, greatly appreciate.

Abigail Schroeder:

Yeah. Well, and you teach that in the membership with the four D's, and I feel like we do that a lot together with talking through our projects and the company and walking through that. Have you spoken about that on the podcast before?

Tonya Leigh:

I think I have, but we've added an extra D, so should we go over those real quick?

Abigail Schroeder:

Yeah, let's do that.

Tonya Leigh:

So people know what we're talking about.

Abigail Schroeder:

Yeah, do you want to share or should I?

Tonya Leigh:

You can share. It'd be great.

Abigail Schroeder:

So the concept of the four D's is when you're faced with a task, you have four options. You can delegate, delete, delay, or delight. And so we'll go through those. And so often, let's say there's a project that we're talking about implementing in the company and we go through and notice, okay, while this is a really great project, we maybe can't do this while exhibiting mindful excellence for whatever reason, we have other projects going on the timeframe. So we can go through those D's and say, well, can we delete this? Is this really important? If the answer is yes, we can go, all right, can we delegate it? That's a great option. We have such an amazing team. There are several different parts of projects we can delegate to other people, but sometimes everyone has a lot on their plate. And so number three would be delay. And so that is moving it to a different timeframe. And then if none of those work and we say, you know what? We got to do it, then you delight in the task or activity that is at hand.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah. And it's such a great way to think about what you're doing. Because I always say, if you're going to do it, don't do something and then be struggling and arguing with it. You've already committed to doing it, so figure out what needs to happen so that you can delight in it. And I feel like we do a really good job with that at the company. So I want to hear all about your signature work habits. I have people come to me on the team that's just always bragging about you. They're like, "God, Abigail just gets things done. And she's very mindful and she really thinks things through." And you are able to accomplish a lot and what feels like a relatively short amount of time. And I feel like this is something that a lot of people struggle with. And so I thought it would be fun for you to come onto the podcast to share what your signature work habits are.

Abigail Schroeder:

Yeah, I'm excited to dive in. I have five of them. There are more, but I would say these five steps I'm about to share are the steps that when I notice I'm not doing one or two of them, my productivity goes down, I'm not feeling as good. And so that's where these steps come from. And my caveat to begin with is while these are my signature work habits, I fall short of them often. I do not do these perfectly. Jamie, our copywriter has the phrase, consistency over perfection, and I have been using that often as a recovering perfectionist. And so just before I share these steps, I want to make sure I give that caveat of these are my signature work habits, but I'm not 100% on them all the time because no one can be.

Tonya Leigh:

No. Thank you for saying that too, because I think people can listen to a podcast like this and immediately feel like such a failure. And I don't think any of us do anything perfectly or even consistently all of the time. That's just not the nature of life. I like to see these as standards that we work towards and when we're not living into them, we can feel it and we just course correct. And so for any of you all watching or listening to this, I hope you really take that to mind. These are just meant to inspire you and hopefully make some tweaks in your work habits to help you ultimately just feel good, to feel good not only about your work, but about yourself and taking care of yourself. And so I'm really excited to hear what your signature work habits are.

Abigail Schroeder:

Yes. All right, now we can dive in.

Tonya Leigh:

Let's go.

Abigail Schroeder:

So I'll give the brief list and then we'll go in deeper. So number one is starting your day well. Number two is self-awareness and acceptance. Number three, prioritize with focus and rest. Number four, diffuse mode of thinking. And number five is ending your day well. So let's dive into those. Starting your day well can mean a lot of different things. It really means whatever that means to you. For me, it tends to fall in the category of supporting my nervous system. That can look like movement, going on a walk, getting some sunlight. There's a lot of science behind why those things are good for you, but all of them for me really center and help balance my nervous system. So I start the day in a more relaxed state. Do you have anything that you start your morning with that tends to benefit your nervous system?

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah, it's always changing, but I find the one consistent thing I come back to, well two things, music, putting some music on first thing in the morning and journaling. When I can create that surrounding that, as you said, calms your nervous system. And then journal anything that is going on in my head, anything I need to work through or sometimes it's journaling from my future of this is what I'm excited about, this is where we're going. Any of those methods really helped me start my day off right.

And recently, this is going to sound silly, but I usually play a couple of games of backgammon with Fonz before I get my day started. There's something about games for me that creates presence. I'm focused on that one thing. I'm not thinking about work yet. I'm not thinking about what I've got to get done today. It's just a moment of let's just be here. Let's start the day off with something delightful. And then sometimes it's a workout. Sometimes I do that later. I may do my walk later, but journaling and music and then just giving myself a little bit of space to do whatever I want, whether it's play a game, whether it's putts around the house, I know I said two, but those are the three things that really help me start my day out well.

Abigail Schroeder:

Do you feel like you can notice a difference when you start days off that way versus maybe not making the time to do those things?

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah, because I think the way we start our day is the energy that we take into our day. And so if I just jump up and run to my computer, I'm already in a state of overwhelm and stress and it just seems like that is the energy in which I carry with me throughout the day. So yeah, I definitely feel it. What about you?

Abigail Schroeder:

I totally agree. I mean that's why it's step number one. If I don't start my day well, that is probably the main thing that influences the rest of my day. And I like to remind myself too sometimes, I think by saying this, some people might feel like, oh, well it's noon and I haven't started my day well, so the day's gone for. It's like, no, you can really decide to start your day over at noon if you want to. Just taking time for yourself to regulate, most beneficial at the beginning of the day, but can really happen-

Tonya Leigh:

It can happen at 6PM people. Seriously, I talk about the U-turn and I call it Y-O-U, and I'm like at any moment... Because I think when we hear this, we're like, well, I screwed up today. I'll start again tomorrow morning. And we just keep this perpetual pattern of waiting until the next day. And I'm like, at any moment you can do a U-turn and recommit, do whatever you need to do to get yourself back on track. And so I'm so glad you brought that up.

Abigail Schroeder:

Yeah. So that's step one and I think it's a really important step. So going on to the next step is self-awareness and acceptance. And so self-awareness is the piece of knowing yourself well enough to know your strengths and weaknesses, specifically with work, it's what do you excel at and what are you still working on growing? And then the acceptance piece of it. And I was hesitant to add the acceptance piece as a habit because this is still a daily practice. I have to choose every day to accept these. It's not quite a habit yet, but I'm getting there.

The acceptance piece does two things. One, when we accept that we have strengths and weaknesses, it can actually help us understand others better and lead to more collaboration and understanding. And then number two, it can help us actually find tools to support the weaknesses. Sometimes when you aren't self-aware about a weakness or don't accept it, it can be really hard to find the tools to support it. I feel like in coaching you might come across people saying, "I know I do X, but I want to change and I can't seem to do anything about it." Is that something you come across?

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah, all the time.

Abigail Schroeder:

And so for me, that's the acceptance piece of it because I feel like for a long time I was like, well, I know I do this, but it was the acceptance of, okay, that's a weakness and it's okay that that's a weakness because I have these strengths. Because I think for a long time I didn't accept that the things that I was good at were strengths of mine. I just thought everyone was good at them.

Tonya Leigh:

That's usually how it is with our strength. It really is.

Abigail Schroeder:

Yeah. But it really helps you be able to accept your weaknesses when you notice, okay, it's really hard to say, yeah, I really suck at these five things more than that, but when you don't acknowledge that you're really good at the other things. And so I think both of those things are really important.

Tonya Leigh:

I just want to add this because when people come to me with that, one of my questions is why do you want to be better at the things that you're not good at? Really think about that. Is it because you think you should be? Is it because of what the people around you are saying? Because sometimes I find that maybe that's time that we could spend just really reveling in and focusing on our strengths and then surround ourselves with people that support us on our weaknesses. Now sometimes there are things that you want to get better at and I think you absolutely can, but just be curious as to why you're wanting to better that area, what's driving it.

Abigail Schroeder:

Yeah, definitely. And maybe there's a third step of self-awareness, curiosity and acceptance there. So get curious about those strengths and weaknesses like you said. I'm glad you mentioned that.

Tonya Leigh:

What are some of your weaknesses, do you think?

Abigail Schroeder:

Yeah, some of my weaknesses, well, I would say... I'll list some strengths and then I'll list some weaknesses. Going back to making sure I accept my strengths. My strengths are processes, forward-thinking and seeing several perspectives at once. I tend to be really good at seeing how several different puzzle pieces could honestly make four different puzzles. My weaknesses however are memory. It's not great. I lean towards pessimism often and I'm easily distracted. And so it took me accepting those things to be able to find some tools and I'm happy to share those in case anyone relates to these weaknesses with me.

Tonya Leigh:

I'm sure you're the only person who is not easily distracted or is easily distracted. No, I think this is something that a lot of people struggle with, myself included. So please share with us all the tools.

Abigail Schroeder:

Yeah, so number one, I would say my main tool for my memory specifically is I write everything down. Any task I ever have to complete, no matter how long or how short it's going to take me, I write it down and I put it into one place. So for a while I was getting, and I think a lot of people can relate to this, I'll get a notification on Slack, our messenger, and I get an email and I would get a text and I'd have all these things written in different places of things I needed to do, but it wasn't housed in a location that was easy for me to look at. Or I would easily forget to look somewhere. And so my system has been put everything in our project management system, we call it Asana or Asana as some of us call it, and I make a due date for myself, that way I have to look at it and I have to remember, but I don't have to remember, right? My memory is not my strength. And so my project management system can remember it for me.

I actually realized this was a huge anxiety reliever and a distraction reliever. So another one of my weaknesses is easily distracted, actually came back to my memory because I would be working on something, my brain would be like, "Hey, you're not great at remembering. Let's remember this other task." And I'd be like, "Thanks, I got it." And then 10 minutes later it'd be like, "Hey, you're not great at remembering. Let's think of this task." And it would distract me from something else that took priority. And so writing it down, putting it somewhere to house for me, I think of Asana as my second brain because that is just where everything that was in my head can live and I know it'll come back up and I trust that I'll get it done and it'll help me. That's my main one for my memory.

Tonya Leigh:

That's like an extra signature work habit actually. It's so good.

Abigail Schroeder:

Probably. Yeah.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah, just write. I agree with you. I think when we have so much coming at us every day and our brains are so overwhelmed with content and to-dos, it can create this underlying, just anxiety throughout our lives because we're so afraid of dropping the ball, but if you write it down, you know it's taken care of. You know it's there. You know it's not going to slip your memory. And so that's a really good one. And we use Asana, but there are many different ways that you can keep track of your brain so that you don't forget those things that are really important.

Abigail Schroeder:

Yeah, exactly. And I don't know about you, but for a long time I would write something down somewhere or write it down in four different places and then I'd never look at that piece of paper again. And so the step I took farther was, it has to be in one place for it to be productive for me. Other people might have different processes and systems, but that is my main... Memory probably could have been a different signature work habit.

Tonya Leigh:

I just want to say, it's crazy to think about how well you work with your memory not being so great. Seriously, you are so productive, you get so much done. It is very rare that you drop the ball ever. And now I know why, you write everything down. It seems so simple and yet it's a practice that you have to just repeat over and over until you realize, oh, I have another brain that I can rely on.

Abigail Schroeder:

For sure. And I think this might be a tangent, but I used to have a really good memory and then I went through some health issues and my memory just went away really quickly. And so I think maybe being able to remember what it was like having a really good memory to then having almost none made me create a process even faster than some other people might because I knew what I was missing, remembering things well. But anyways, that was just a tangent.

Tonya Leigh:

Love a good tangent.

Abigail Schroeder:

My other weaknesses, shorter, they are shorter tools, but I lean towards pessimism and I say lean towards because it is pessimism. But to be honest, it feels more like realism to me. And I know that's definitely a pessimistic thing to say, but my tools there have been, I started a gratitude journal a couple of months ago and I was so resistant to this idea. It felt very easy for... I was like that's just too easy. But it's really helped shift my perspective on things that I...

One of my strengths is forward-thinking and being able to see a lot of different puzzle pieces and perspectives. But I did lean towards those negative perspectives. And so having a gratitude journal and being able to keep note of some positive things happening, it didn't prohibit those negative thoughts, but it just made space for positive ones and now I can use them all together instead of just leaning towards the negative, which has been really helpful I'd say for work and projects and having a positive mindset and confidence that a project will get done well.

And then the third one, which is I'm easily distracted. We actually aren't going to talk about the tools right now because my next step is actually how is the entire tool basically for my weakness here. Before I get into that, do you have any strengths or weaknesses you want to talk about and some tools that-

Tonya Leigh:

So many of both. I think for me, I think my biggest strength is my visionary aspect, being able to really see and know where I want to go. I think my biggest weakness is my impulsivity. I'm full of ideas and I want to do everything like yesterday. And I'm sure that's very overwhelming to the team. And I think as I said earlier, having someone like you around me to be like, okay, we're not going to just get rid of that idea, but is it the best thing to do right now? That has been so helpful, so helpful. So I could go through a whole list of weaknesses, but we have other work habits to get through. But again, like I was saying, I think it's just important that you know what they are and that you honor them. You don't make them mean that there's anything wrong with you. It's just part of the human experience. We're not supposed to be great at everything and you just surround yourself with the right people. It's why environment is so important.

Abigail Schroeder:

Yeah, for sure. And like you said, getting... You're saying you're impulsive. Is that a bad thing? It actually creates a lot of positives within the company. It's finding the people that can help support that with their strengths. So yeah, I love it.

Okay, the step number three is prioritize with focus and rest. And so this is a big one, and this is a tool I use to help me not get distracted. And I think everyone gets distracted nowadays. We're kind of primed to not have a very good focus, not a very good ability to focus for long periods of time. And so for me, what I have found to be helpful is prioritizing and then implementing something called focus and rest.

And so how I prioritize is... You can do it on a monthly, weekly, quarterly basis. But for an example, a couple of weeks ago I noticed I had a couple, we had a lot of hard dates and a lot of projects that had due dates coming up. And I wanted to make sure that where I was spending my time in the coming months was where it actually needed to be. I feel like it's really easy to get pulled into side projects or things that are important but might not be the main priority at this moment. And so I made a list of an order of everything that needed to get done, when it needed to get done, and very menial steps of, okay, well this due date is now, but it's actually going to take me a month to start getting the information from other people and doing these types of things. And so that is something I implement often and I implement that on a weekly basis as well. But it is beneficial for a longer term, usually quarterly.

And so I did that a couple of weeks ago and then now every week, every Monday, it's usually how I start my week. I will look at that list and say, what is my top priorities this week? That usually leads to a list of a couple of things. And then from there I do something called focus and rest. And so this is the practice of setting intentional time to focus and intentional time to rest. And so for me, what that looks like is I set a timer for 52 minutes. It's a very specific time. It's what works for me. And I focus on whatever my priorities were that I set. It usually is more so a beginning of the day task or ability. I can't often do this all day. We have meetings, we have things come up, people need us for other things. And so I usually try to do two or three cycles of this throughout the day. It helps my productivity. And so I sit down, I do 52 minutes of focus, and then as soon as that timer goes off, I set a timer for 17 minutes and I rest.

That can look like going on a walk. A lot of those things to help calm your nervous system that we talked about to start your day, are a lot of what I can do during this time period. But it's really stepping away from whatever I was working on because it's really beneficial for me to not only be able to come back after that 17 minute time period and say, all right, what do I want to focus on for this next hour or 52 minutes? But then also it lets my brain do its natural focus and rest cycle. Have you ever been working on something really hard and you kind of naturally daydream off to the side for a couple of minutes and then you just kind of naturally shift back into focus? Does that ever happen to you?

Tonya Leigh:

All the time, every day.

Abigail Schroeder:

That's natural. It's actually how our brain is supposed to work. We just don't often tell people that or people don't often know that that's an okay thing. It tends to be a negative that people daydream or that they aren't able to focus for four hour periods of time. It's actually not how our brain's supposed to work. And so by doing these focus and rest cycles for myself, I really just support my brain in how it naturally functions. So that is step number three. So prioritizing with focus and rest.

Tonya Leigh:

I love that your time [inaudible 00:29:23].

Abigail Schroeder:

Do you have other time frames or anything that helps you?

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah, mine, I follow the Dream Italian process, which is in the School of Self-Image. I love it because it's customizable, but I always encourage women to choose blocks of time. And the first thing that they have to schedule is self-care because that's usually the last thing we put on our list. We're like, oh, let me see how much time I have to take care of myself. That's the first thing that we schedule. But I like to schedule blocks of time. Typically, for me it's 45 minutes. I find that after 45 minutes, I'm off in la la land, so 45 minutes. And what's really important for me is that I know the outcome of those 45 minutes.

So instead of just saying like I'm going to work on a program or I'm going to work on this, it's like, no, at the end of this 45 minutes I will have produced a podcast. I will have created the outline, whatever I need to know... I need to tell my brain exactly what we're doing because if not, my brain is going to go to confusion. What are we doing here? And so for me it's like 45 minutes on, 15 minutes off is like the ideal time, but for some people I think they have to work up to it. Maybe start with 20 minutes or 10 minutes because if you're not used to focusing and you aren't used to requiring your brain to really zero in on something, it's a skill that you have to build.

Abigail Schroeder:

Yeah, like we talked about at the beginning, if you try to go all or nothing, starting at 52 minutes might get you really discouraged that you're not able to focus for 52 minutes. And that's completely normal. It's normal for your brain not to be able to focus and you just have to work up to it. You wouldn't expect yourself to be able to run a marathon without training for it. And so we have to treat our brain the same way.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah. We have to love our brains.

Abigail Schroeder:

We have to love our brains. And going on to the next step. It kind of blends together with this one. But step four is called diffuse mode of thinking or incubation theory of psychology. And this is the theory that when you step away from a challenge or a task and actually don't think about it intentionally for a while, it can really actually help you see new perspectives and be able to solve the problem in a way you really wouldn't have been able to focusing on it so intently. So this ties into the focus and rest we just talked about in giving your brain space to not so intensely think about a challenge. Now that intense focus is really important as well, but this diffuse mode of thinking allows us to gain new perspective like I mentioned. I so often will take a rest or I'll be in the shower or I'll be putting my head on my pillow about to fall asleep and I'm like, bing, I just solved a problem I've been trying to solve for a week and I haven't been thinking about it for the past three hours.

Those things happen all the time for me. And so diffuse mode thinking is really important to my work process. I'll take it a step further. For me, it's not only those 17 minutes of rest, it's also when I'm given a project, I probably would allot 60% of the time I'm given to completing it and 40% to refinement. And that 40% is where I use more of the diffuse mode of thinking. So let's say you give me a project on Monday and say, "Hey, I need this by next Monday." I have a week. In my brain, I actually set the due date as Wednesday or Thursday for me to have completed the task, that way my brain has Thursday and Friday to really spend time in the background thinking about it. I notice I create such more high quality work when I'm able to take space away from it for a while. And that is why diffuse mode of thinking is one of my steps-

Tonya Leigh:

Oh my God. So I have to share this with you. I love that you just said this because I'm used to, okay, it's due on Friday, I'm going to get it done by Friday and then I get it done. And there are times where it's like, okay, it's off to the masses, it's off... The contents out. And I'm thinking, oh my God, it could have been so much better. And part of me thinks that that's just the way our brains are wired. Our brains are always going to think that it's so much better. So Laura Hinton, who is our community manager, she came in last week to work on a project for the membership that we're so excited about and we are so ahead of schedule because this is something that I'm going to be filming in December. But we completed everything and now I can't tell you how good it feels to know that I have the next couple of months to do what you were just talking about.

I'm already getting ideas of how I want to refine it, how I can make it better. And so I am in love with this theory of yours. I know you didn't come up with it, but you have brought it to my attention because I do think there's something about that. So what I'm hearing you say is whatever the deadline is, shrink that deadline for yourself, get it done, and then give yourself those... It might be a day, it might be three days to really marinate in it and see what you want to tweak, see how you want to refine it. And you may do nothing with it, and that's okay too. But also I think about just the pressure. It's like you're ahead of schedule, you got it off of your plate ahead of time and if you want to change it, you can. So I love this theory.

Abigail Schroeder:

Yeah, there's several different rows to it like you mentioned. And I love that you've been noticing that it's been supportive for you.

Tonya Leigh:

So good. So good. All right, what's your next one?

Abigail Schroeder:

So the next one, step five, last one, ending your day well. And so this one is important, just like starting your day is because it's all a cycle. And for me, I've noticed, especially work related, I need to finish work about three to four hours before I go to sleep. So I don't really have a designated time that I end work, but if I know a time I'm planning to go to bed, I work backwards from there because for me, if I don't take that time to do something for me, those three to four hours before sleep, I tend to continuously think about tasks, the projects, and then I don't sleep well. And then I wake up and then I probably sleep in because I didn't get enough sleep. And then I don't start my day well and then it just cascades from there.

And so step number five, ending your day well just kind of ties a pretty little bow on everything else that we've been talking about because it supports all of the rest of the steps. And for me, ending my day well can look like cooking, hanging out with friends, going on a walk, playing a game. I love concerts, traveling, new experiences, any of those things that really support you. And I do want to mention a piece about... I think sometimes self-care is seen as get a massage, do a facial, those types of things. But this also falls into the practical self-care of like do that chore you've been putting off for a month, doing it will actually really support you. And spending the time before you go to bed doing things for you, even if it's not the most fun type of thing, is really important to the rest of your productivity and work habits.

Tonya Leigh:

I love that you said that. Self-care can be hard sometimes, right? Self-care is going to the gym even when you don't [inaudible 00:37:25] to. Self-care is folding the laundry that you've been letting pile up and it's just consuming your time, but you know you're going to feel so much better once you do it.

Abigail Schroeder:

Or that hard conversation that you've been avoiding with somebody that you know will benefit in the long... It's the decision to do something now that might not feel the best but will definitely benefit your long term goals. They don't feel the best in the now sometimes, but they definitely help in the future.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah. So what would you say out of... Can you go over them again? Start your day well-

Abigail Schroeder:

So there's five steps. So starting your day well, self-awareness and acceptance, prioritize with focus and rest, diffuse mode of thinking and ending your day well.

Tonya Leigh:

So out of all of those five, which would you say is the most important, that's had the biggest impact on your work life?

Abigail Schroeder:

A big fan of everything blends together, but I will answer the best way I can. I would probably say the prioritize with focus and rest. If I had to start with one, that would probably be it. If I'm being honest, the reason I started focus and rest was because I was noticing at the end of the day, my brain's capacity to really do anything was zero. I couldn't focus. I couldn't really regulate my emotions. I was getting really irritated and frustrated about things that didn't really warrant it. And someone mentioned to me like, "Hey, maybe you should rest a little bit more throughout the day, maybe a little bit." And I started to implement that on a very small scale and it was so supportive to my ability to show up for myself, to show up for work. It's counterintuitive that you rest and you're not spending time working. I think we think we have a lot to do. Let's do everything we can with the time we have, but resting actually makes those 52 minutes so much more productive and beneficial. So I'd say that one probably.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah, and that's what I love about our company culture is that we really do encourage that. I get excited when someone's like, "I'm going out for a walk, I'll be back in 30 minutes." Because I just know that when you come back, you're going to be so much more productive, you're going to feel better. And I think everything is energy. So not only will the team feel that, but I feel like our clients will feel it. So it's something that we definitely encourage and I just find that people are more in love with their work, they're more productive and they're happier. It's like, are we working to live or living to work? I want us to work to live. I want us to have a life outside of work and a life inside of work, which is why things-

Abigail Schroeder:

[inaudible 00:40:15] a life that we like in work. I think being productive and feeling like the goal of your company is something that you believe in is really important and can support you having a good life. But there is always that work-life balance that it's very hard to accomplish. But we definitely encourage that with people within the company.

Tonya Leigh:

100%. Well, thank you so much. I know so many people are going to find this conversation extremely inspiring and hopefully you all will walk away with some tips of how to elevate your work habits. So thank you for joining us today.

Abigail Schroeder:

Well thank you so much for having me.

Tonya Leigh:

Take care. Cheers everyone.

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This week, I want to share a personal story that marked the beginning of my journey towards true belonging. It’s a tale of embarrassment, self-doubt, and, ultimately, growth.

Picture this: I’m in my late 20s, attending a swanky country club dinner.

Nervous and feeling out of place, I made the bold (and, in hindsight, risky) choice to wear white.

As someone from humble beginnings, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I didn’t belong among these seemingly “better” people. Would they expose me as not good enough, smart enough, or rich enough?

Spoiler alert: This mindset is the antithesis of belonging, but we’ll get to that.

In my anxiety-induced state, I tried to escape a conversation by excusing myself to the bathroom. What happened next? In a scene straight out of a sitcom, I collided with a waiter carrying a platter of meatballs. Let’s just say that white dresses and red sauce are not a match made in heaven.

Mortifying as it was, this incident led to a profound realization: I needed to learn how to belong, starting with belonging to myself.

This messy encounter sparked a journey of personal growth that my younger, marinara-covered self couldn’t have imagined. It even inspired me to create one of my most popular programs, Charm the Room (available to VIP members of the School of Self-Image).

Looking back, I’m incredibly proud of that younger version of me. She recognized that her feelings of inadequacy were just a story in her head – one that needed unraveling and rewriting. I’m equally proud of who I am today, comfortable and at home in any room with anyone.

Here’s the most important takeaway from my journey: You belong in any room you choose to enter. If anything or anyone tells you otherwise, it’s a lie!

Remember, true belonging starts with accepting yourself. Once you do that, you’ll find that you can charm any room, even with a sauce-stained dress.

Until next week,

Embrace Your UniquenessTrue belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are;it requires you to be who you are.

~ Brené Brown

Belonging isn’t about fitting in – it’s about showing up authentically. Cultivate a belonging mindset that sees your uniqueness as your greatest strength. This transforms social situations into opportunities for genuine connection.

Today, challenge yourself to embrace one aspect of yourself you typically hide. Share an unconventional opinion, wear that bold accessory, or open up about a hidden passion.

Remember, true belonging comes from accepting yourself fully – quirks and all. Your uniqueness isn’t just acceptable; it’s your superpower in social settings.

The Love Knot Slouchy BagHave you noticed some accessories have a chameleon-like quality, effortlessly belonging in any environment? The Love Knot Slouchy Bag is one such item. It’s as much at ease in a sleek corporate boardroom as it is at a casual weekend brunch, adapting to its surroundings with quiet confidence.

This bag’s versatility comes from its thoughtful design. The spacious interior accommodates a laptop and daily essentials, while the removable zip pouch keeps smaller items in check. Its soft faux leather exudes luxury yet remains practical and ethical.

Whether it’s resting beside you during an important meeting or hanging off your chair at a cozy café, the Love Knot Slouchy Bag looks like it belongs, which can, in turn, help you feel like you do, too.

Purchase the BagHow to BelongA high-stakes business meeting in a sleek boardroom, a glamorous charity gala filled with unfamiliar faces, or your partner’s family reunion where inside jokes fly over your head – we’ve all encountered moments where we felt like we didn’t quite fit in.

This week, we’re diving into the art of belonging and how it relates to truly charming any room you enter. I’ll share strategies for cultivating inner confidence, and we’ll explore how to embrace your authentic self in any social setting.

Listen to The Podcast// TheEDIT

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Let’s talk about style today - not just the glossy magazine version, but the real, sometimes messy journey of finding your personal style.

When I started paying attention to fashion, my style was... let’s call it eclectic – a hodgepodge of magazine inspirations, sale rack finds, and what I thought looked good. Spoiler alert: my stylist’s eye wasn’t quite trained yet!

One of my biggest mistakes? Thinking I could buy my way to great style. I’d accumulate mountains of clothing, hoping to solve my “style problem.”

Newsflash: More clothes don’t equal more style. They just equal a cluttered closet and a thinner wallet.

But here’s the thing about mistakes - they’re fantastic teachers if we let them.

I learned that throwing money at a style problem doesn’t solve it.

What does? Investing in style education.

(Want to start your own style education journey? Join our FREE 5-day Style Challenge starting tomorrow!)

Unless you can afford a full-time stylist (and, let’s be real, most of us can’t), learning about style is the best investment you can make in your wardrobe.

As my style evolved, the most significant change wasn’t in my closet - it was in my approach to getting dressed. The ease and joy I now feel when putting together an outfit is night and day compared to the stress and uncertainty I used to experience.

This style evolution has profoundly impacted my self-image and confidence. Style has become a tool for me to see myself in new, expansive ways, and it is one of the fastest methods I know to change my thoughts about myself.

Dressing in a way that truly reflects who I am is like giving myself a pep talk without saying a word.

What advice do I have for those struggling with their style journey?

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither is a great wardrobe. Be patient with yourself.
Most importantly, recognize that a style journey is actually a journey of self-discovery. It’s about uncovering and expressing who you are through what you wear.

Say yes to this journey! Embrace the mistakes, learn from them, and enjoy the process of discovering your unique style. It’s not just about looking good - it’s about feeling good, feeling like you.

Here’s to style, self-discovery, and saying yes to the adventure!

With love & encouragement,

The Elegance of LearningElegance is the only beauty that never fades.

~ Audrey Hepburn

True elegance isn’t just about appearances; it’s about the grace with which we approach life and learning. The most elegant minds are those that remain open, curious, and willing to evolve.

Today, challenge yourself to learn something new with the enthusiasm of a lifelong student. Whether it’s a new skill or a different perspective on a familiar topic, approach it with grace and humility.

Cultivate the elegance of a mind that’s always growing, always questioning, and always eager to understand more. This kind of intellectual elegance will enhance not just your knowledge but your entire approach to life.

The Style Challenge | Elevate Your Fashion IQGet ready for a stylish adventure: our FREE 5-Day Style Challenge kicks off tomorrow, September 19. It’s like a mini fashion school – but way more fun!

In just 15 minutes a day, you’ll learn key style concepts that won’t just transform how you approach your wardrobe; they’ll set your confidence skyrocketing.

The Style Challenge is not just about clothes – it’s about learning to express your authentic self.

Each day reveals a simple style principle that empowers you to:

Make getting dressed a joyful, creative expression of who you are
Unlock a wardrobe that feels tailor-made for you
Breathe new life into your existing wardrobe

Ready to expand your fashion knowledge and discover the joy of your authentic style? Join the FREE 5-day Style Challenge – we start tomorrow.

Join the FREE 5-day Style ChallengeMy Top 5 Style Mistakes (and What They Taught Me)We all make fashion faux pas, but what if those mistakes were actually stepping stones to discovering our true style? In this week’s podcast, I’m getting vulnerable and sharing my top five style mistakes – and, more importantly, the valuable lessons they taught me.

I’ve made plenty of missteps, from buying clothes that didn’t fit my lifestyle to chasing trends that felt misaligned with my personality. However, each mistake has been crucial in developing my personal style and boosting my self-image.

Join me for an honest, enlightening discussion about the beautiful mess that is our style journey.

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Listen to the Full Episode:Finding Your Place: The True Meaning of Belonging

True belonging begins with the acceptance and love of oneself, enabling you to show up authentically in any situation. This concept is central to the podcast episode, where Tonya Leigh emphasizes that belonging is not merely about fitting in or conforming to the expectations of others. Instead, it is about embracing your true self and cultivating a profound sense of acceptance from within.

Tonya shares her recent experiences at the SOSI tour stop in L.A., highlighting the joy of connecting with a supportive community. She reflects on the common feelings of insecurity and social anxiety many of us face, especially when entering new environments. The episode is inspired by her journey to cultivate a sense of belonging and acceptance, starting from within.

Tune in to discover valuable insights on overcoming feelings of isolation and building genuine connections with yourself and others.

Episode Details:00:01:48 - The Essence of Belonging

00:03:25 - Need for Confidence and Connection

00:05:13 - Misconceptions About Belonging

00:05:45 - Authenticity and Confidence

00:08:47 - Vulnerability and Connection

00:10:04 - Embracing All Parts of Yourself

00:13:00 - Rejection is God's Protection

00:16:26 - Thoughts That Nurture Belonging

00:17:32 - Developing a Belonging Mindset

00:19:08 - Belonging in Luxurious Environments

00:20:26 - Taking Responsibility for Your Own Belonging

00:23:35 - Cultivating Belonging in Daily Life

00:25:09 - Celebrating Differences

00:26:13 - Challenge for the Week

Useful Resources: Click HERE to join the 5-Day Style Challenge * Click HERE to join the Membership * Click HERE for a FREE download * Click HERE* to sign up for our weekly newsletter, The Edit

Connect with Master Life Coach Tonya Leigh: Click HERE to follow our Instagram * Click HERE to visit our website * Click HERE to visit our Facebook group * Click HERE to follow our TikTok * Click HERE to subscribe to our YouTube channel DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:*Have you ever walked into a room and felt like you didn't belong like somehow everyone else got the secret memo on how to fit in, but you missed it? Yeah. We've all been there. And today, I'm going to unpack what it really means to belong, not just in a room but in your own life. So get ready to challenge your assumptions about belonging and discover how to cultivate a deep sense of acceptance starting with yourself. Let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, Master Life Coach Tonya Leigh.

Hello, friends. How are you doing? I just got back from a week in California. Part of it was visiting family and friends, and then the other part was we had our second SOSI tour stop in LA. and I just have to say, getting together with this community in person is so fun. I mean, we have such an incredible online community, but when you put us all in the same room together with a good DJ and a glass of wine or a mocktail and good conversation, it's like this is the essence of what we are all about. Women celebrating each other, sharing, and supporting, it's such a beautiful and fun thing, and it really inspired today's podcast topic, which is how to belong. Have you ever had that feeling of walking into a room and suddenly feeling like you're back in middle school, desperately hoping that someone will talk to you, desperately hoping that you'll fit in, or maybe you're in a group and you're sure everyone else got the memo on how to act and behave, but somehow you missed it? Yeah. Me too. We've all been there.

It's what inspired me to create the program that's a part of the membership called Charm the Room because for years, I suffered from social anxiety. In fact, I've told this story before, so if you're hearing it for the second or third time, just bear with me because I know some of you haven't heard this story. But I remember in my 20s going to this fancy country club party and I had decided that this was the night I was going to wear white. You'll learn in a minute why that was a terrible decision, but I remember just the anxiety that I felt in my body being in this room full of strangers. Somehow I got into this small group and they started to ask me questions and I got so nervous that I quickly excused myself to go to the bathroom, and I turned around and I ran into one of the waiters who happened to be carrying a tray of meatballs. And you can guess where the meatballs went, all over my white dress.

And it was that day that I realized like, "Listen, Tonya, you are forever, as long as you are a part of this world, going to be interacting with people." And I just knew that this is not how I want to feel. I want to feel confident and secure and connected to people, not feel like people were objects that I needed to run from. And at the heart of it, I didn't feel like I belonged. I didn't feel like I fit in. So naturally, going into a room with that thought, with that energy kept proving to myself over and over that I didn't belong because I removed myself from the belonging. And I want to talk about what that looks like and why that is.

Belonging isn't just about feeling comfortable at parties or in boardrooms. It's actually about something so much deeper and more important. So why does it matter so much? Well, we as humans, we are wired for connection. If you think about it, way back in the caveman days, we needed each other to literally survive. So this isn't just a nice-to-have. It's a need-to-have. Studies have shown that people who have community have a better sense of well-being. Your stress levels are reduced. You feel more connected. You feel like you have support. So belonging impacts everything, our mental health, our confidence, even our physical well-being. But here's the thing, most of us have the completely wrong idea about what belonging really means. We think it's about fitting in and morphing ourselves to please others about being normal, whatever that means.

We think it's about saying the right things, doing the right things. And I want to tell you that is not what true belonging really is. What it is about being authentic and unapologetically you. It's about showing up as your full self and connecting with others from that place of security and confidence and authenticity. It's why I remember early on, I took etiquette classes, and etiquette classes taught me some really good skills. It taught me how to hold a knife and a fork. It taught me how to follow certain protocols, but it didn't solve for the deeper problem. The deeper problem was insecurity. The deeper problem was a collection of thoughts that perpetually told me that I wasn't good enough, and no amount of etiquette classes could solve for that problem. So my journey to belong sent me on this wild path of self-discovery. At first, I did think it was about learning how to speak properly and how to walk into a room, but it was so much deeper. And the first thing that I learned is that you will never belong in a group of people if you don't first belong to yourself.

What does it mean to belong? Well, it means to be accepted, to be included, to be a part of something. So when you think about belonging to yourself, it means being acceptive of who you are and that means you have to know who you are. You have to know what you love. You have to know what you value. You have to know what's truly important to you. And more than anything, the acceptance is loving yourself no matter what. If you're not your own advocate, if you're not your own best friend, it is going to be very difficult to feel like you can belong anywhere because when you are not being a friend to yourself, when you are not belonging to yourself, what I know happens is that you show up in a room and you're desperately seeking that acceptance. You're desperately seeking that approval. And when you need that to feel safe and secure, chances are you're not showing up as your truest self. Belonging to yourself also means being honest with yourself.

One of the ladies that came to the SOSI tour shared in the group about how she walked into that very nervous and feeling like she didn't belong and how that affected her experience, but then she went on to share how she knew it was her and she knew this was the next level of growth for herself. And all I could think when I was reading that is like, "Girl, you're there." Having that level of honesty, I don't have anything to hide here. I can just show up and be me. I can share my weaknesses. I can share my strengths. I've got me. I can be vulnerable and know that I'm never going to turn on myself.

It's so interesting, that vulnerability. As much as we try to hide it and as much as we try to show up and act like we have it all together to pretend that we are this when we're actually that, when you show up in that fullness of who you are, that's what really creates connection and true belonging. I mean, have you ever been in a situation where the room's really uptight and suddenly someone in the room shares something out of left field that's completely raw, completely honest, completely vulnerable, and it's almost like everybody's like, "Ah, finally, we can just be human together. We don't have to keep pretending. We don't have to wear these masks." This one person and their courage to reveal who they really are gives everybody else permission in the room to do the same. That's where magic happens. That is where you really know you have reached that next level.

It's not about being perfect. It is not about showing up in a certain way. It's can you be present and accepting of all parts of you. And there are going to be amazing parts of you and they're going to be not so amazing parts of you? We often want to hide the not so amazing parts of us and only showcase what we think is the best parts of us, but the problem with that is we have all of it. Every human does. So when you're trying to hide a part of you, it makes it very difficult to belong, which is why you have to do the work of belonging to yourself, accepting yourself, accepting what you love, accepting your weaknesses, accepting your strengths. Because when you make peace with that, you show up in the world in a much more powerful way, and that's when you can create true belonging.

I think about Fonz, my guy. He has been my greatest teacher on this topic because he is a man who knows who he is, is very convicted in his beliefs, and would rather lose a friend than to be untrue to himself, which is hard for a lot of us because we love our friends. But if it requires him going against his own integrity, he would choose his integrity every day over choosing people outside of him, and what I have seen happen in his life is that the people that are around him is true community. They're not people that he has to pretend around. They're not people that he has to people please. He gets to just show up and be himself.

And part of that is that people will reject him, which is how you belong. How you create true belonging is you have to be willing to be rejected. But I want us to think about it in this way. We are rejecting what isn't a match for our truest, most authentic self. So people may reject you, but that's actually a good thing because if they accepted some fake version of you, you would forever have to put on this act, which is exhausting. I know. I've done it. But the way he operates in the world, he attracts the people that love him for him. He doesn't have to put on any airs, any graces, any acts. He is true to himself. He belongs to himself. But again, to do that, you will turn some people off. There will be people who reject you, and again, I want you to see that as a gift.

I don't remember where I heard it from, but years ago, I heard rejection is God's protection because if you think about it, if you attract something from an energy that's not truly you, think about that attraction years down the road. To keep it, you have to keep being something that feels misaligned and out of integrity for you. So if someone rejects you, just trust that you know what? Nothing wrong with me. Nothing wrong with them. We are just not a good match. I see business this way. I think our membership and our offerings are world-class. The value that you get for what we charge is incredible. And I see all of the amazing changes that are happening in women's lives, and still, there are women who reject it. I share the offer and they're like, "Nope. It's not for me." And that's actually a good thing because now, I can just show up and be me and know that the people and the women who are in our community, they are attracted to the true me.

Now, in my business, I'm not going to lie, there have been times where I have put on a facade. And a year into it, I'm like, "God, this is going to be really hard to keep up." It was a beautiful learning experience for me. And this has been a part of my journey of learning how to belong to myself because again, when you belong to yourself, that's the ultimate belonging. That's what we're all really after. And we also want to belong to the right people, the people who love us no matter what, the people who get us, the people who have shared values, the people that have maybe shared aspirations, the people that are an energetic match. That's who we want to belong to.

And it's really interesting. The women in the community, when they get together, the majority of them all have that sense of belonging and I've seen it time and time again. If there's a woman in that group that's not feeling it and we sense that, we go to her. We're like, "Listen, come over. Get in this conversation. You belong in this room." But if a woman walks into that room thinking she doesn't belong, she will prove that to herself time and time again.

I had a woman at a recent event who was sitting at the table by herself and I was like, "Oh, no, sister, I got to go talk to you." And it was really interesting, when I sat down to talk with her like, "Hey, how's it going? What's going on," she shared with me how she almost didn't come, how she was so nervous, how this was such a big step. And her sharing that, that vulnerability, made me feel more connected to her and we started talking about this very topic and how I've definitely been there. And it was like we started to have this mutual connection, and next thing I know, she's up talking to everyone. But she had to be her and get that out to know that that is the ultimate belonging.

Now, what else I want to say about this is that to create belonging, you need thoughts that nurture belonging. If you're walking around thinking, "They're not going to like me," or, "I don't belong here. I'm going to say the wrong thing. I'm going to embarrass myself. People are going to know I'm an imposter," those types of thoughts will make you feel insecure. They'll make you feel disconnected. If you're like me, they'll make you feel anxious. And I want you just to think about how you show up with groups of people when you are feeling those ways. You may do what I did and try to run out of the room. Go hide in the bathroom. You may find yourself being really quiet. You may find yourself talking a lot, trying to overcompensate. And those behaviors will ultimately prove to yourself, your original belief, which is, "I don't belong. I'm going to make a fool of myself," et cetera, et cetera. So belonging starts in the mind and it's hard to think thoughts of belonging if you're not accepting of yourself.

This is why this work is so deep and it's such a beautiful journey to go on. If you want to belong and to feel that sense of belonging, I encourage you to develop a belonging mindset. I remember Byron Katie one time saying something that was so powerful. She said anytime she walks into a room, she thinks to herself, "They love me. They just don't know it yet." Now, think about that. Think about walking into a room with that thought. These people love me. They just don't know it yet. I would imagine that you'd feel excited, that you would be curious, that you would be confident. And that would cause you to have conversations to get to know people, to look for love, not hate, and that would create a sense of belonging, starting with that one thought. They all love me here. They just don't know it yet.

I love believing I belong in any room I choose to enter because for years, you all, I would walk into places and feel like I didn't belong. An example is put me in a luxury store and immediately, I would think, "Oh, they're going to find me out. I don't belong here." I'm the customer, yet I was acting like they were doing me some big favor by paying attention to me. It's crazy now that I think about it. So I started to do this work even with luxurious environments and choosing to believe that I belong in any room, any store, any place I choose to enter. And that required, again, that I learned to belong to myself. But one of the thoughts that I've been playing around with lately, and I love this thought because it takes me out of me, it does what I call turn the camera out because most of the time when we are in groups of people, the camera is turned inward. We're thinking about, "What do they think of me? Do I look okay? Does this outfit look good?" It's all me, me, me focused.

I love the thought I create belonging. I create it. So when I walk into a room with this thought, I feel excited. I feel empowered. And what that causes me to do is to look at how can I create belonging here? Let me introduce Susie to Betty. Let me go over here and chat with this woman who's sitting by herself. Let me get a conversation going that we can all share and contribute to. I'm telling you that one thought has been so powerful in helping me to feel belonging. Instead of it being something that is granted to me, something that I have to win, something that I have to prove, something that I have to be good enough for, I go into it knowing I create it. I create belonging. I want you all to think about that.

If you truly believe that you created belonging, how would you feel the next time you're at a networking event? How would you feel the next time you are meeting up with a stranger for coffee? How would you feel the next time you are hanging out with some new friends? You would probably feel encouraged, excited, confident. And when you are in those feeling states, how do you show up with other people? And more importantly, how do you show up with yourself? I create belonging is where you take responsibility for your own sense of belonging, and when you do that, you find that you want to share that belonging and that feeling with other people. So instead of waiting for others to make you feel included, you actively contribute to creating a welcoming space for yourself and for others.

Now, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. Choosing to belong, to show up authentically, it involves risk. As I shared before, the risk of rejection, the risk of judgment. And that can be scary. But here's the thing, risking rejection is necessary for true belonging because if you're never risking rejection, it means you're not showing up as your true self. You become a chameleon. You do whatever it takes to fit in, at the sake of selling out your own integrity. You're showing up as how you think other people want you to. And trust me, pretending to be someone you're not, that's way more exhausting than dealing with a little rejection now and then.

So how do we build the resilience and the courage to take the risk? It starts with you remembering your inherent worth, reminding yourself that someone else's reaction to you is about them, not you. You could show up with one person and be rejected and then show up with another and be completely accepted. You're the same person dealing with two different people, so obviously it's not you. Obviously, it's the other person. And I think we can get into the blame game and judge people if we're rejected, but I just love to think, you know what? Nothing wrong with them. Nothing wrong with me. We're just not a good match. But when you get rejected, you need to practice self-compassion. When things don't go as planned, be very mindful not to beat yourself up and make it mean something, other than we're just not a good match. Too bad for them. They just don't realize they love me yet.

So how can you start cultivating the sense of belonging in your daily life? The first one is to practice being true. Share your real opinions, even if it's different from the group. Wear that outfit that feels like you, even if it's not what everyone else is wearing. Be true to what you want. Be unapologetic about it, even if it makes other people uncomfortable. Also, seek out communities that align with your values and interests. You'll find that it'll be so much easier to be in that energy of belonging when you know that you're around people who share similar values. This might be a book club or volunteering for an organization or an online group that has similar interests. The key is to find people who light you up. I think we go into rooms and we're like, "Do they like me?" And we need to be asking the question, do I like them? Do I enjoy being around them? But if you're always thinking about yourself, you're never asking yourself the question of, are these the people that I want to be around?

It's also important that you develop empathy and compassion for yourself and for others. We're all figuring this out together, you guys. Everyone is fighting their own battles. A little kindness goes a long way and that kindness has to start with you. Also, true belonging is going to require healthy boundaries. It doesn't mean saying yes to everything and to everyone. It's okay to say no to things that don't align with your values, your energy, or your needs. And then I find it's really beautiful to celebrate differences. Diversity actually makes life interesting. I know sometimes we may daydream about everybody being like ourselves, but think about what a boring world that would be. There would be nothing to react to. It would be a very monochromatic existence. So embrace what makes you unique and appreciate the uniqueness in others.

So I want you to remember this. You belong, not because of what you do, or what you achieve, or what you have, or what kind of car you drive, or what kind of house you live in, or what kind of labels are on your clothes, or how well you fit in. You belong because you exist. You are a vital part of this human tapestry, and the world needs your unique thread that only you have. So true belonging starts with you accepting yourself exactly as you are. It's about showing up authentically and creating space for others to do the same.

So this week, I want to challenge you to practice one thing that we've talked about today. Maybe it's you cultivating one belonging thought that you will carry with you throughout your day. And again, I love the thought I create belonging. Maybe it's you sharing something authentically and maybe even a little vulnerable with a friend or maybe it's attending an event, stepping outside of your comfort zone, so that you can find those people with like interests and like values. Whatever it is, I'd love to hear about it. You can go over to Instagram. Find me @tonyaleigh and share with me. Is this something that you've struggled with and what was your biggest takeaway from today's episode? I read every message that comes in. I would love to read yours. And remember, you've got this. Again, you belong and you're making the world a better place just by being you. Have a beautiful week, my friends, and I'll see you on the next episode.

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Listen to the Full Episode:From Ruts to Renaissance: How Style Can Change Your Life

A style renaissance is not merely about updating your wardrobe or following the latest fashion trends; it is a profound journey of self-discovery and personal growth. In her podcast episode, Tonya Leigh emphasizes that true style comes from within and reflects who you are at your core. A style renaissance can help you rediscover your true self and use style as a powerful tool for self-expression.

Tonya invites listeners to embark on a transformative journey through their style. She introduces the Style Experience, an annual program designed to help women redefine their approach to fashion and personal expression. Tonya shares her own struggles with understanding style, highlighting a common experience of trying to mimic trends without a true sense of self. The episode emphasizes the importance of an inside-out approach to style, encouraging listeners to explore how their wardrobe can empower and elevate their lives. Tune in to discover how this unique experience can facilitate personal growth and unlock your authentic style.

Episode Details:01:08 - Style Experience Transformation Journey

02:24 - The Deeper Questions of Style

04:10 - The Importance of Style in Personal Development

05:33 - Defining a Style Renaissance

06:16 - Rediscovering Your True Self Through Style

06:49 - Sign 1: Major Life Transition

08:14 - Sign 2: Being in a Rut

11:16 - Sign 3: Getting Dressed is a Chore

13:00 - Finding Joy in Getting Dressed

14:14 - Sign 4: Envy of Other Women's Style

15:30 - Sign 5: Hitting an Upper Limit

24:00 - No More Waiting for the Perfect Time

29:20 - Speeding Up Your Style Journey

Useful Resources: Click HERE to join The Style Experience * Click HERE to join the Membership * Click HERE for a FREE download * Click HERE* to sign up for our weekly newsletter, The Edit

Connect with Master Life Coach Tonya Leigh:

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Click HERE to subscribe to our YouTube channel DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:Have you ever felt like your wardrobe was holding you back instead of propelling you forward? Are you ready to transform not just your style, but maybe your entire approach to life? Well, in today's episode, we're going to explore why now might be the perfect time for your style renaissance and how The Style Experience can be your guide on this transformative journey. So let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello my friends. Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. I am so excited and the reason why I am so excited today is that the doors to The Style Experience just opened. This is an experience. I don't even like to call it a course or a program. It really is an experience that I ran for the first time last year and the results were so extraordinary, I am so looking forward to doing it again. I only do it once a year and I put a lot of my time and effort into the women who go through this experience. I get to know them. We bond, we grow, we learn together and it's starting on October the 3rd, hence why I am so excited.

And I'm going to tell you more about this program in a minute, but I do want to just give you a little idea of why I created The Style Experience because for many years, I like many women, was so confused by style. I knew deep down I wanted to be a stylish woman, but I didn't know how. And so my answer was to buy a lot of clothes and hoped it worked out, to imitate or at least attempt to imitate what I saw in magazines and on celebrities. I really took an outside in approach to style, meaning I hope I can figure out on the outside so it affects how I feel on the inside.

And that just never worked. It never answered the deeper questions that come with a style journey, which is who are you really? What do you value? What do you love? What turns you on? What excites you? What do you want to build your life around? And it was only when I started doing this deeper work around my self-image, did my style begin to evolve in a change so that it really felt aligned with who I am.

And it just so happened that I was by default sharing this stuff with friends and even with clients within the School of Self-Image, and before that French Kiss Life, which was my previous brand. And I noticed that it was working. That I was seeing exponential results with clients around their style by doing this deeper work. And so after years of women asking me, Tonya, I really wish you would do a style focused program, last year I decided to do it for the first time. And again, it was so much fun. It was life changing and we are taking it to a whole new level this year because anytime you do something, you learn and you grow and you just take those lessons and apply it over and over. And I will probably be doing that for the rest of my life in all of my programs and in my life itself. But this year we are up leveling the entire style experience and I'm just so excited to work with the women who choose to be a part.

Because style is one of the most powerful personal development tools. It will show you things about yourself. It can up level you in ways that you couldn't do on your own. And sometimes women want to argue with me that style doesn't really matter. But what I say with them is that everything is style. How you carry yourself, how you sign your name, how you walk into a room. And yes, the clothes you wear are all a part of your style and we want to tell that story on purpose and that is what we do in The Style Experience.

Yes, you will learn timeless style principles and how to style your outfits, advanced styling techniques. We will talk about all of that. But when you pair that with the inner work of really discovering what your true essence is, that's when the magic happens. So in preparing for The Style Experience, I've been thinking a lot about who this experience is for and who it's not for because it's not for everyone. There are certain people who even if you want to work on your style, it's not going to be a good fit because this work goes deep. If you're just wanting to learn about colors and places to shop, then yeah, you will learn a lot about that within The Style Experience. But we do take it to a deeper level.

And so I was thinking about what this work is all about and it really is about a style renaissance. I mean if you think about what renaissance means, it is a period of rebirth and renewed interest in art and culture and learning. A style renaissance is a personal awakening, a rejuvenation, a rebirth of who you are in relationship to style. Like how do you express that through your fashion choices and self-expression through your clothing? It's not just about buying new clothes or following trends. A style renaissance is about rediscovering yourself, embracing change and using style as a tool to express your evolving identity.

I think that this work really is about you coming back home to yourself and sometimes you've been so far away from home that you don't even remember it. Or in this case remember her, but she's still there and that's what I'm passionate about. Helping you rediscover who are you before the world told you who you should be? Who are you at your very core? This is not about becoming someone you're not. It's about becoming who you always have been, but maybe you've lost touch with her.

And so I want to give you five signs that you are ready for a style renaissance. You ready? In doing this work for many years now, one of the biggest signs, we're going to call this sign number one, is you are in a major life transition. Maybe you're going through a career change, you're switching industries, you got a promotion or you're starting your own business. Or maybe it's personal milestones. Maybe you're entering into a new decade of life. You're getting married, you're becoming a parent, or maybe you're getting divorced. Maybe you're going through physical changes. Maybe you've gone through significant weight loss or gain or you're adapting to a new health condition. These are all major life transitions and when your life shifts dramatically, often there is this feeling, even if it's a positive shift, it's like a death. It's like you're letting go of who you've been and you're stepping into a new version of yourself.

And so along with that, your style needs to evolve to this new version of you. Your clothes are not just fabric. They are an expression of who you are and where you're going in life. And so if you find yourself in this new territory, personally or professionally, it's a clear sign that your wardrobe might need a renaissance to match this new identity, this new self-image. So that is sign number one.

Sign number two is where some of you may be right now. I've definitely been there, all of my friends have been there, my clients have all been there. At some point, we all find ourselves here. I've never met a person who hasn't been in a rut and that is sign number two. You are in a rut. You are going through the motions. You're thinking the same thoughts, doing the same things, hanging out with the same people, having the same conversations, driving the same ways to work, eating the same things. You just feel like you are in a rut and you're also probably wearing the same outfits on repeat week after week. Shopping may feel pointless because everything looks the same. You can't remember the last time you felt excited about getting dressed or maybe about your life in general.

A life rut can be resurrected or overcome by up leveling your style. And here's why. It creates this cognitive dissonance and within that dissonance, you get to choose. So let me give you an example. Let's say you've been in a rut of just feeling really down and you've been choosing outfits that represent that feeling state. Well, the moment you're like, you know what? Today is the day that I'm going to do the hard thing and I'm actually going to put on an outfit that looks great on me. Even though your brain's telling you why bother, you shouldn't do it, you are fighting for who you want to be. You're fighting for how you want to feel. And so you put that outfit on and you walk by a mirror and you see yourself. Now you can see there's a dissonance between your feeling state and your physical appearance.

And in that moment you get to choose. Do you want to move towards the state that you imagine that great outfit represents? Or do you want to stay where you are? And you do that day in and day out and you literally climb your way out of a life rut through clothing. I have done it so many times, my friends. So many days I didn't feel like getting dressed. So many days I wanted to just put on the sweats and call it a day because my brain was trying to convince me that there's no hope. There's no reason. It doesn't really matter. You've got too far to go. You fell too badly. It's not going to work.

But I did it anyway because there was a part of me that knew deep down like a little flicker inside me that was saying, keep going. Do it. Dress up. You matter. It's worth it. It does matter. There is hope. And by doing that, I have climbed out of so many life ruts. Clothes can change your life and so if you find yourself being in a style rut or a life rut, I want to challenge you that you are ready for a style renaissance.

Sign number three is this, getting dressed is a chore. When the act of choosing an outfit feels more like a tedious task than an enjoyable part of your day, it is a sign that you are ready for a style renaissance. You might be experiencing this if you find yourself dreading the morning routine of picking out your clothes. I'm raising my hand because I've definitely been there. You're like, ugh, I've got to go to work. I got to go meet some friends. I got to pick out an outfit. And it feels like it's just a dreadful task. It's not something you look forward to. It's not full of joy, which getting dressed should be.

I'll never forget a French woman telling me the three things you do every single day is you eat, you live in your home and you get dressed. And so when you think about it that way, the one thing that you're going to be doing every day for the rest of your life, if you're not finding joy in it, there is a problem. And I remember vividly when she said that, a light bulb went off. I was like, oh my god, she's so right. These are the three things that we do every day and I set out to master them, which is why I went on my own style journey. I was so tired of feeling like I was out of alignment with what I felt like who I was on the inside and it not matching up with my outer appearance. I was so tired of all the drama of getting dressed. I was tired of saying no to events because I was afraid I didn't have anything to wear. I wouldn't fit in. I was like this is the one thing that I'm going to be doing every day for the rest of my life. So I want to master it.

And that's one of the reasons why I created The Style Experience because it's the one thing that you do every day. I want you to do it confidently and joyfully, and you can only do that if you know who you are. Like who you truly are and you understand style principles to help you express that version of yourself. Also, if you've noticed part of getting dressed being a chore, you'll know you're experiencing this if you've stopped putting an effort into your appearance just because it feels pointless and you settle for the whatever is clean rather than what truly excites you. Getting dressed is a form of self-care and self-expression. It shouldn't be a burden. If it's become a chore, it's time to rediscover the joy and curating your style. A style renaissance really can transform this daily task, this thing you do every single day, from drudgery to delight and that I am so excited for.

Okay, sign number four that you're ready for a style renaissance is you find yourself envious of other women's style. Now let's just have an open, honest conversation, because I've been there. I've been perusing magazines or on Instagram or seeing a friend show up and being like, gosh, I envy her. I wish I had what she had. I wish I had that outfit. I wish I looked as good as she does. And envy to me is just a sign of desire. It's actually not a bad thing if you use it for its purposes, which is to showcase to yourself something that you want for yourself and for whatever reason you don't think you can have it. And I'm here to tell you that you absolutely can.

Instead of feeling discouraged by this envy, I want you to use it as motivation. I want you to start asking yourself things like what is it about their style that I admire? Is it the bold use of colors or the mix of textures or patterns or perhaps the confidence with which certain styles are worn? Identify these aspects and consider how you can incorporate them into your own wardrobe. Use your envy as fuel for your own style renaissance.

And then finally, sign number five that you are ready for a style renaissance is this, you've hit an upper limit. This happened to me last year actually. I felt like I had hit an upper limit. I've also called this being out of my sweet spot. And usually when this happens, we immediately could go to mindset work. Which it's all mindset, don't get me wrong. And I also believe that we can engineer our environment as well as our style to help us access new possibilities, new ways of thinking, creativity that will allow us to overcome these upper limits.

And that's exactly what I did. I went straight to my closet. I'm like, listen, what needs to go? What represents the old me? What represents the old energy? And then what do I need to bring in? What represents where I'm going? And I literally crawled out of my hole. I overcame an upper limit with style as one of the major tools in doing so. I want you to think about all of the upper limits that you may be facing. Maybe it's a financial ceiling. You've been earning the same salary for years despite your best efforts. Maybe your business revenue has plateaued at six figures annually and you just can't seem to break through to the next level. Maybe it's career stagnation. You've been in the same position for five years and your request for promotions just keep getting denied. You're doing the work of a manager, but you still have your old title and your old pay grade and you're like, what is going on? Why can't I get over this hump?

Maybe it's a relationship upper limit. You and your partner have been dating for seven years, but it just doesn't feel like the relationship is progressing. And you're ready for the next step, but you're stuck in this holding pattern. Maybe it's a upper limit with your fitness. Maybe you've been trying to lose those same 15 pounds for months, but the scale just won't budge. Your workout routine may be boring. It used to give you results, but now it's not doing anything and you're not excited about it.

Maybe it's a creative block. Maybe you're a writer who used to publish a new story every month, but you haven't written anything for over a year and your creativity feels completely tapped out. Maybe it's a social circle upper limit. You've had the same friends for a decade and while you love them deeply, you feel isolated from new perspectives and experiences and you want to expand your social circle. These are very typical upper limits and they can be very frustrating and demoralizing actually, unless you develop the skill of overcoming them.

Because you know you're capable of more, right? You know it, and that's why it's so demoralizing because you're like I know I am capable of more. I know there is more within me, but I just feel stuck right now. Well, this is actually where a style renaissance can come into play as a powerful tool for change. You can get a confidence boost, when you're dressing for the job you want, not the one you have, you can feel that energy coming from your clothing. There is a term called clothes cognition that they've actually studied. How clothing affects our cognition and it's a real thing. A new look can give you new perspectives. When you change how you look, you open doors to new social circles or professional opportunities.

A style renaissance can also help you break patterns. If you've been wearing the same outfit for years, changing up your style can actually shift your energy in a very powerful way. It is a pattern interrupt that forces your brain to think in new ways. When you walk by a mirror and you see yourself in a new way, you are then asked which version of you are you going to believe in? Are you going to stay in the version that you've been or are you going to reach and stretch into that version that you are stepping into?

Let's also talk about the creative inspiration. Experimenting with different artistic styles has the ability to spark creativity in other areas like your writing, for example. And then as it relates to relationships, if you feel stuck in a relationship, changing up your style shifts your energy. And that's why I love style so much. Style is more than just fabric on your body. It is a form of self-expression. It's also a tool that can force your brain to think in new ways. It can shift your energetic state.

And so think about it this way. You and your partner have been together for seven years. Maybe you notice that you're wearing the same things and feeling the same ways and nothing ever shifts. The energy just keeps going in the same direction over and over again. But the moment you switch up your look, the moment you wear something that truly feels like you and you walk into that room with him or her and you are feeling confident, maybe you're feeling sexy, maybe you're feeling more feminine, more romantic, that has an effect on the energy in that room and in the energy of that relationship. But more than anything, you start to feel better. And when you start to feel better, you show up in more powerful ways. You start to have more clarity on your next steps. And so if you have hit an upper limit, it may be time for a style renaissance.

If you can relate to any of these, then I want to invite you to join us for The Style Experience. Again, I only run this program one time a year. I put a lot of my time and effort into supporting the women who choose to be a part of this experience. And we have intentionally created it to be rolled out over the course of six months because Rome wasn't built in a day and neither is a great wardrobe. We are going to go deep. We are going to explore. We are going to have a lot of self-discovery. We are going to have fun and each month builds on the next.

This isn't just about shopping and learning style principles, although that is a big part of The Style Experience. This is about figuring out who you really are, what you really love, what you deeply value, what your goals, your aspirations, what it is that you want for your life and aligning your style choices with that. This is about no longer waiting, no longer waiting until one day when. One day when you've lost the weight or you're making more money or you're more organized or you're settled in your new house. This is you saying to yourself, now is the time. Now is the time for me to do this work. Now is the time for me to step into that version of myself that I know deep down that I really am.

Because there will never be a perfect time. Can we all agree on that? Life will always tell you later. You can do it next year. You can do it next month. You have more important things to do right now. And for some of you, that may be a very conscious and intentional choice that feels really good for you, and I applaud you on that. But for a lot of you, if you pay attention, you'll notice that this is the theme of your life. You're always waiting. You're always waiting until one day when you have all the answers. One day when you feel ready. One day when everything is perfect. And have you noticed that that day never comes? It's a fallacy. It's a myth. It doesn't exist.

And so for the woman who's ready to stop waiting until one day when, you're going to love The Style Experience. Again, we've intentionally rolled it out over six months because I know that we have a lot on our plates. I know that we have obligations and things to do, and yet I don't want you to put this part of your on hold another day if this is work that you are being called to do.

In The Style Experience, we don't wait until we have the perfect body because we know that the body we have right now is deserving of love and respect, and we dress her accordingly. We don't wait for the perfect budget because we know that style has no budget. We know you can be stylish without spending a lot of money. And here's the really cool part. When you know your style, you'll find yourself spending less money and looking and feeling better. Because when you know your style, you aren't making those purchases that you later regret and just hang in your closet unworn. Instead, you invest in pieces that look good, that feel amazing, that feel like you. So that when you open your closet, you love everything in there. You know how to create a versatile wardrobe. You understand how to dress your unique body. You understand how to style an outfit. And so getting dressed every day becomes this joyful experience instead of something that you dread.

So we don't wait for the perfect budget. We know that by doing this work, we are going to save money and not to mention the opportunities that may open up because of how you're showing up in the world that could lead to more money. Whether it's a job promotion, whether it's getting more clients, whether it's an opportunity that you had no idea was even available to you until you showed up in the world in a way where that possibility was a possibility.

Are you all with me? This is why I'm so passionate about style you all because I can look back and see how style has been responsible for so many of the opportunities that I have been blessed with. Because had I shown up in a different energy, that possibility would not be available to me. I know that with every fiber of my being and now I have clients who have also said the same thing to me. Whether it's a date that they went on that then became their husband, a job promotion, them growing their businesses as a result of showing up in their authentic, fully expressed self.

That is the work that we do within The Style Experience. And so yeah, this experience is rolled out over the course of six months. We are going to have two 90-minute workshops every single month where we are going to build upon the curriculum. And if you cannot attend live, no worries because we always have replays that are in your beautiful membership area. But in addition to that, we are also going to have closet conversations. I'm going to be bringing you into my closet and it's like a show-and-tell. I'm going to be showing you how to style outfits. We are going to be talking about the obstacles that we all encounter on our style journeys and how to overcome them. This is going to be one big party that we have in my closet every single month via Zoom, and you are going to learn so much in these very curated closet conversations, as well as get to know the other women who are in the community.

And that leads me to the last point, the community. The friendships that were born from last year's Style Experience is probably my favorite part because when you do this work with like-minded women where you're celebrating, you're supporting, you're being vulnerable, you're sharing your pictures of the outfits that didn't work, and everyone still applauding you for the effort. When you are sharing the outfits that did work and everyone's applauding you about what is amazing about not only the outfit, but you. There is an energy that's created from that that is so beautiful and often creates lifelong bonds.

In The Style Experience, I'm going to encourage every single one of you to want what you want unapologetically. Whether that's sneakers or stilettos, whether it's leather or lace. This is about us supporting each other and our own authentic self-expression. And that's the kind of community I want to belong to. I want to belong amongst like-minded women who support each other, who aren't afraid of being vulnerable, who share in their struggles as well as their successes.

And that's what we're going to be doing, and we start on October the 3rd. It's just around the corner. The doors are open for a very limited time, and I would love to support you on your style journey. I was sharing in an Instagram video the other day a little bit about my own style journey and the twists and turns that have happened. But I said at the end, I'm like, you know, a style journey really is a journey back home to yourself, and you're going to make a lot of mistakes. Things aren't always going to go according to plan. You're going to get off track sometimes, but if you stay committed to your own self-discovery, you are going to so pleased with where you end up.

And I still feel like I'm on this journey because there's still so much more growth to do, and that's why I love The Style Experience because I'm growing right alongside you all. I am evolving. I'm shedding. I'm getting back every day, every month, every year to the essence of who I am. And again, I think it's a lifelong journey. But with the tools that we teach in The Style Experience, I do know this. You can speed up that journey. You can get there faster. You will have the tools to support you in getting dressed joyfully and being more confident in how you show up in your life and in the shopping choices that you make, the outfits that you put together.

Not only is it a life-changing journey, I think it's one of the most fun journeys that you will ever go on. So if you're ready to go on a style journey with me and an incredible group of women, come join us within The Style Experience. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/style. We start on October the 3rd. I cannot wait to see you there. All right, my friends. Cheers to your style renaissance, whatever that looks like for you. It is definitely a renaissance of rebirth, of rejuvenation, of learning, of growth, and it's definitely one I encourage every single one of you to go on. Have a beautiful week and I'll see you on the next episode. Cheers.

Enjoy the Show? Don't miss another episode!Pick your favorite platform below:The Self-Image Manifesto

You’re Invited To Live An Extraordinary Life!

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I’ve been contemplating personal evolution and all the edges we hit along the way.

Currently, I’m sitting in this new home I designed, built, and decorated.

Everything about this home feels like me, and yet, the other day, I had the thought, “Who am I, the little girl who grew up in a trailer, to have such a home as this?”

This is a common edge women, especially, face as we grow.

I call this particular edge The Edge of Worthiness.

When we hit these edges, it’s essential that we walk towards them, not away.

Nothing has gone wrong. This is normal.

Here’s what I did in this particular situation – I took out a piece of paper and wrote my answer:

Because you’ve always dreamed of a home like this ever since you were a little girl
You have worked hard
This home is safe to enjoy and share
This home will provide your family and friends with so many memories

I kept going until I had filled an entire page.

Suddenly, I let go and allowed myself to really be in this home, to relax into the edge.

This is the art of joyful reinvention.

When you are stepping into your visions filled with love, joy, and abundance, here’s an important reminder:

Keep sauntering towards those edges that scare you.

Beyond them resides a whole new world.

With love and encouragement,

The Expansion Mindset: Growth Through Daily ChoicesWe cannot become what we want by remaining what we are.

~ Max Depree

Expansion isn’t just about giant leaps; it’s about the small, intentional choices we make each day. Consider your daily habits. Are they nurturing your growth or keeping you stagnant?

Cultivate an expansion mindset – a perspective that sees every experience as an opportunity to learn and grow. This mindset turns even mundane moments into chances for personal development.

Today, challenge yourself to find one small way to expand your world. It could be taking a different route to work, experimenting with a new recipe, or reaching out to a long-lost friend. Remember, expansion is about enriching your life experience, one small step at a time.

The Style Challenge: Your Adventure in Self-ExpressionRevitalize your style and rediscover the joy of getting dressed with our FREE Style Challenge, starting September 19. In less than 15 minutes a day, you’ll learn to create unexpected outfit combinations that express your evolving self and enhance your self-image.

The Style Challenge is designed to push you gently beyond your comfort zone, encouraging you to express your authentic self through your outfits. It’s a delightful journey of creativity and self-discovery that fits easily into your busy schedule and leaves you feeling more confident in your personal style.

Ready to expand your style horizons and fall in love with getting dressed again? Join us for this FREE 5-day style revolution.

Join the FREE 5-day Style ChallengeSauntering Beyond Your LimitsWhen was the last time you felt both excited and terrified by a new opportunity? This week, we’re exploring that exhilarating edge where growth and discomfort meet.

We’ll discuss practical strategies for pushing boundaries and the transformative power of stepping into our expanded selves. Plus, I’ll share more about my process of embracing uncertainty and redefining my limits.

Join me as we learn to dance with our edges and discover why a confident saunter might be the key to joyful personal expansion.

Listen to The Podcast// TheEDIT

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Who knew building a home would spark a full-blown obsession with interior design? Certainly not me!

As I immersed myself in the world of scale, color theory, and spatial planning, something remarkable happened. These design principles weren’t just transforming my living space - they were offering fresh perspectives on life itself.
I’ve always believed that everything is connected, but nothing has been so clear to me as when I was deciding on what color to paint my dining room and how that was a room that represented a part of myself that I don’t often express.

Lesson after lesson revealed itself as I chose lighting, sizes, and even art. Could it be that the secret to a well-designed life can be found in interior design?

Suddenly, selecting the perfect paint color became a reflection of setting the tone for my days.

Creating focal points in a room translated to highlighting what truly matters in life.

And the art of leaving negative space? It revealed volumes about the value of downtime in my packed schedule.

This journey from blueprints to “life prints” has been nothing short of transformative.

That’s why I'm thrilled to share my top 5 life lessons gleaned from this unexpected adventure in home design in this week’s podcast.

Who knows, your next HGTV binge might just spark some serious life insights.

Can’t wait to share more,

P.S. The next time you’re rearranging your furniture or picking out throw pillows, you might just stumble upon the secret to inner peace. Stranger things have happened in the world of interior design!

The Art of Personal Space PlanningThe best rooms have something to say about the people who live in them.

~ David Hicks

Your living space is a canvas for your inner world. A thoughtfully designed home does more than provide comfort – it becomes a reflection of your personality, values, and aspirations.

When you create spaces that truly resonate with your authentic self, you craft a visual narrative of who you are and who you’re becoming. This alignment between your surroundings and identity enhances self-awareness, boosts confidence, and allows you to navigate your daily life with a stronger sense of purpose.

Tomorrow, choose one area of your home and consider what it says about you. With gentle awareness, reflect on how this space represents an aspect of your personality or a value you hold dear. If it doesn’t, ask yourself what might be changed to better reflect your true self.

Easthampton Storage BenchI’m in love with this Easthampton storage bench that’s now gracing my new walk-in closet. With its chic oval seat and hidden storage, it’s the perfect blend of glamor and function.

Every morning, as I sit on it to contemplate my day’s outfit, I’m reminded how seamlessly beauty and organization can coexist. It’s not just a bench; it’s become my daily inspiration for elegant living.

Purchase the Storage Bench5 Life Lessons Learned From Interior DesignSymmetry. Texture. Ambiance. Who knew these elements of home styling could revolutionize personal growth?

In this week’s podcast, I’ll reveal the surprising links I’ve discovered between curating living spaces and designing my life’s path. I’ll share how principles of home design unexpectedly reshaped my worldview and daily habits.

Join me to explore how your next styling project could be the key to unlocking your well-designed life.

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Listen to the Full Episode:Dressing for You: How to Break Free from Style Myths and Embrace Authenticity

Many individuals find themselves standing in front of a closet full of clothes, yet feeling as though they have nothing to wear. This common frustration often arises from a mindset that prioritizes an ideal body weight or shape over the current self. The belief that one must wait until they achieve a certain physical state before investing in their style is not only limiting but also counterproductive.

Tonya Leigh discusses her own experience with what she describes as the "waiting game." She recalls how she spent years convincing herself that she would invest in her style once she lost a certain amount of weight or reached a specific body shape. This mindset creates a cycle of negativity, where individuals continuously reinforce a narrative rooted in self-doubt and dissatisfaction. As she explores her past and the lessons learned, Tonya encourages listeners to consider their own style choices and what they may have outgrown.

Join her for an inspiring discussion on embracing your unique style and stepping into your authentic self.

Episode Details:00:00:37 - Tonya's Morning Motivation and Style Journey

00:01:43 - The Deep Connection Between Style and Self-Image

00:02:59 - The Style Experience: A Unique Approach

00:04:05 - Enrollment for The Style Experience

00:05:08 - Style Mistake #1: The Waiting Game

00:09:23 - Style Mistake #2: The Numbers Game

00:13:25 - Style Mistake #3: The Label Trap

00:18:25 - Style Mistake #4: Trapped by a Self-Image

00:22:40 - Style Mistake #5: The Knowledge Gap

00:28:18 - Conclusion: Embrace Your Style Journey

Connect with Master Life Coach Tonya Leigh:

Click HERE to visit our website
Click HERE to visit our Facebook group
Click HERE to follow our TikTok
Click HERE to subscribe to our YouTube channel
Click HERE to follow our Instagram DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:Have you ever stood in front of a closet full of clothes and still felt like you had nothing to wear? I think we've all been there. And today we're going to unpack the reasons behind this all too common frustration because I am sharing my top five style mistakes. The fashion faux pas that kept me from truly expressing myself through my wardrobe and what I did about it. So let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach Tonya Leigh. Hello, my beautiful friends. Welcome back to the podcast. It is eight o'clock in the morning and I've already been up for a couple of hours and so I'm feeling so motivated that I had to jump in here and record this for you. I'm feeling motivated because this morning I had a chance to sit down and journal and sometimes I just check in with myself and ask, what do you want to think about?

Where do you want to place your attention? And I wanted to think about my own style story because in case you missed it, I declared that this would be my summer of style. And so this morning I went on a little journey to Young Tonya, when she was first starting her style journey. And all of the lessons learned and all of the mistakes made. And it's all been beautiful, it's all led me to here. It's been quite the journey of self discovery because style may seem superficial on the surface, but in reality it's so deep, it's so deeply linked to our essence, our personality, our identity, our self image. And when you start digging deeper into your style choices, you may be surprised at what you've outgrown and who you no longer are when you're truly being honest with yourself. And I have personally felt that shift over the last year or two.

And so this deep dive into my own style journey is what inspired today's episode. I was taking notes, I'm like, I have to do a podcast on this. And these aren't just random fashion faux pas that I'm going to be sharing with you. These are hard earned lessons, moments of clarity, and yes, sometimes cringe-worthy moments that have shaped my style philosophy. It's also what led me to create the style experience. And looking at all of the style programs out there, I felt like something was missing. I felt like they weren't going deep enough to really use style in a way that I think it was meant to be used, as a form of self-expression, but also as a tool for self-discovery. And that's what makes the style experience so unique is that yes, we cover timeless style principles, but more than anything, I want style to be a gateway into you being your most confident, most fully expressed self.

And the only way to do that is to really go deep into what you love, what you truly value, your personality, what feels good for you, what lights you up. And in watching women go through this experience last year, I've seen how it spills into every area of their life. Not only does it do things like help you save money and time, but the confidence that's gained, the just peace in one's life because you're no longer wrestling with your closet and ultimately your self, it is invaluable. And so the style experience is opening its doors for enrollment really, really soon. And I am so excited to work with this group of women over the course of six months. Because listen, Rome wasn't built in a day and neither is a great wardrobe. We are going to have so much fun. And I can't wait for you to really dig deep into your style story.

And more importantly, I can't wait for you to write a new one because that's what we're going to be doing in The Style Experience. So if you were interested, stay tuned. It's coming really, really soon. Now, for today, I want to share my top five style mistakes because I believe we can turn these mistakes into success stories. I often tell members of the School of Self-Image. I'm like, listen, you got to make mistakes to succeed. Success is built on a mountain of failures. That is not my quote. I've heard it many times from different sources, but it's true. And so let's start with mistake number one. And I know that so many of you have done this and maybe you're doing this right now, and you got to stop. And I call this the waiting game. I did this for years. What this looks like is waiting for your body to change, to invest in your style.

You keep telling yourself, as you're standing in front of the mirror, "You know what? When I lose those 10 pounds or 20 pounds, then I will buy something that looks good on me." Or once I get through menopause, then I'll focus on my style. I've been there, I've done that. And I can tell you on the other side, it is a recipe for misery. And let me share with you why. Everything you choose is confirming a story about yourself. So everything around you, your home, your friends, your job and the clothes you wear are creating the story that you have about yourself. And so when you are choosing, let's say, big, baggy clothes to hide your body like I used to do, what is that confirming? That you probably have a weight problem when you choose clothes that don't look good on you. Because in the back of your mind, you're telling yourself, I'll do it later when I've lost the weight.

I don't want to waste that money. But go deeper and think about what does that confirm about you? You start creating this narrative that just feeds on itself and it's so hard to get out of until you start making new choices. I often say I started changing my life with one dress. I was very much in this place of waiting. I had Sarah, she was probably about two or three years old, and I was still carrying a lot of the weight. And if I wasn't in my nursing scrubs, I was just wearing big baggy khaki pants and an oversized white T-shirt. And I had this story, when I lose the weight, then I'll invest in something that looks pretty. But every time I would look in the mirror, I just feel terrible about myself. And when I felt terrible about myself, I felt hopeless. And then I would overeat.

I would give up. I wouldn't take care of myself. And so you can see I was just this self-perpetuating story that I kept living out. And one day I realized what I was doing to myself. And this was before I had the tools that I have now, but I could see it. I didn't have the theory behind it, but I knew deep down, "You got to do something different, Tonya, because this isn't working." And I found a very lovely simple little black dress. A little black dress saved my life. And I put it on and I remember wearing it. And I remember even Sarah looking at me and saying, "Mama, you look so pretty." I wasn't used to her saying that because that's not who she was seeing. But I felt a little shift that day and that's all we need, ladies, just a little shift, little shifts add up to create big shifts.

And I started paying attention to not only my clothing choices, but a lot of the choices in my life because I knew I needed to create a new story about myself. And so I want to challenge you all that are waiting, waiting to invest in your style, waiting to buy that dress. Please stop. It's not serving you at all. And here's what I've learned as a woman. Our bodies are constantly changing. We've got pregnancy, we've got perimenopause, menopause, lifestyle changers. Our bodies are always in flux. So waiting for the perfect body is like waiting for a train that never arrives. I believe style is for now. Your style is an expression of who you are today, not who you might be in six months or a year. Also fit is everything. Clothes should fit you, not the other way around. Proper fit can make a $20 dress look like a million bucks while a poor fit can make even a designer dress look sloppy.

And finally, self-love is stylish. Embracing and dressing your current body is an act of self-love. And confidence, well, that's the most stylish accessory you can ever wear. I want you to remember this. Your body isn't the problem. Ill-fitting clothes and unrealistic expectations and waiting, that's the problem. And so start dressing for the wonderful woman that you are right now. In fact, if you are one of those women who you've been waiting, I'm going to challenge you, actually. I want you to find one outfit that fits the body you have right now and looks amazing on you as you are right now. It might be something that you already own and maybe you need to take it to the tailor or it might be something you need to go out and find. But don't hold yourself prisoner to this ideal. Because at the end of the day, women want to feel beautiful.

And that is available to all of us right now today. We don't have to wait until one day when. We have to change our mindset. We may have to redefine what beauty is for us. But when you do, you take all of your power back. Waiting takes your power, but the moment you stand up and you say, "I'm no longer waiting to feel beautiful, to live the life that I want to live." That's when you get all of your power back. And when you have your power back, that's when your life begins to change. Now let's talk about mistake number two. And I'm calling this the numbers game, and this is that misguided belief that having more clothes equals having more style. And I fell for this one big time years ago. I remember during a move, looking at my closet, it was bursting at the seams.

I still had tops with tags, dresses I'd never worn, jeans in every wash imaginable, so many shirts and sweaters. And yet the crazy thing was every morning I'd stand in front of my closet, utterly paralyzed. Isn't that crazy? So much abundance and feeling so much scarcity. And I would tell myself, I have nothing to wear. And my friends and family, they were confused. They're like, "What are you talking about? You have so much to wear." But when I was packing up box after box of clothes, I realized I couldn't remember wearing half of them. The sheer volume was so overwhelming, and yet I had nothing to wear. And that's when it hit me. I had plenty of clothes, but I had no real style. There's a big difference. I thought the answer was to buy more. If I buy more clothes, I can figure out my style. But I had it wrong.

Because more isn't always more. A closet full of mediocre pieces or pieces that don't really fit you, either your body or your essence, they won't serve you well. Also, quantity mask indecision. Often we buy in bulk because we're not sure of what truly suits us. When we're confused, we may buy more than we need or more of the wrong things, hoping that that quantity is going to fix the problem, but it never does. And then decision fatigue is real. Too many options can actually make getting dressed harder, not easier. And then quality over quantity, always. One well-made versatile piece that fits your style can be worth 10 cheap trend driven items that don't fit you, that you just bought because they were on sale or you saw a friend wearing it looked cute on her. And the lesson that I've learned in this is your style isn't defined by the quantity of your clothes, but how well they reflect and serve you.

It's about having less but loving and wearing it more. Mistake number three, I call the label trap. This really hit the wallet, ladies. And it's this belief that designer labels automatically equate to great style. And spoiler alert, they don't. Now, this may seem paradoxical to what I was just saying about quality. I do believe in quality, but quality can be obtained without spending thousands of dollars. And it doesn't mean designer labels. I think back to this dress that I bought. It was my first designer dress. And it was beautiful. And I spent a lot of money on it. But the problem was it didn't quite fit my body. I was trying to make it work. It didn't fit my lifestyle at the time, and it definitely didn't fit the other things in my closet. And so it was just hanging in my closet, becoming more a source of anxiety than a source of joy.

And I believe everything comes down to intention. What's the intention behind what you do? And when I got really honest with myself, my intention was I was trying so hard to be stylish because I didn't really know what I was doing at the time. And so I thought, "Well, it's designer. It costs a lot of money. Obviously it must be stylish." Well, it wasn't obvious to me that it wasn't. And so I share that with you because I do think that when women go on a style journey, they automatically start running stories that it's going to be expensive and they're going to have to have a lot of designer things. If you love designer truly, and you have a particular designer that you love their clothes, you love their bags, you really feel like they represent who you are, fantastic. I will always, always encourage you to do what feels like love, joy, and abundance.

But I've just seen too many women choose designer clothing because of the illusion that they think they're going to create to other people in being more stylish. And it ends up having the opposite effect because when you're decked out head to toe in labels, it almost signifies that you don't yet know your style that well. That you are depending on and leaning on these labels to do the work for you. And that may sound a little harsh, but it's what I know to be true for me. Maybe not for you. Maybe you love being decked out head to toe labels. But I have found that the most stylish of my friends are those that have a mix of high street brands and thrift store finds. They choose things that fit their body, their coloring, their personality, the labels don't matter. They're fit and their confidence does.

And so in all of this, I've learned that style isn't something you can buy as something that you cultivate and express. And expensive doesn't always mean better, especially if it doesn't suit your lifestyle or your body. I've also learned to mix high and low. Some of my most stylish outfits combine budget finds with a few well-chosen luxury pieces that I've collected over the years. And finally invest in quality, not labels. A well-made piece from an unknown brand could outlast a poorly made designer item. So learn how to spot quality, quality fabrics, quality stitching, because that doesn't necessarily mean a lot of money. So the takeaway here is true style isn't about the label, it's about how you wear it. It's about choosing pieces that resonate with you regardless of the price tag. And remember, confidence is the best designer label you can wear and it goes with everything.

Mistake number four is keeping myself trapped by a self-image. All of work I do is around self-image, and you can have a healthy self-image and an unhealthy self-image. You can also get trapped by a self-image. And I saw that in myself because this goes deeper than just the clothes, ladies, this is about identity. It's about clinging to a version of yourself that you've outgrown or worse, a version that never was you to begin with. And so for years as I was figuring out my style and I was on my own style journey, especially in the very beginning, I would dress for what I thought others expected me to be. So when I would go to networking events, I would put on something that seemed very professional, even though it did not look like me at all. It didn't feel right.

If you ever put on an outfit and you're like, "Okay, this looks good, but it doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel like me." And then talking about the last mistake, I found myself caught in this trap of designer clothing labels. Because I had somehow created this brand of luxury. And now I had the pressure of thinking, "Oh my God, now we've got to buy luxury all of the time." When in fact I do love some luxury. There are some pieces that I have right now that I am so grateful for and I'm so glad that I purchased them. I have worn them for some of them for over a decade. They have served me well, but I don't want to be trapped by anything. I don't want to be trapped by this image that doesn't allow space for me to grow and to evolve. Even if I think about doing the style experience, I love style.

I think it's so much fun. But I could easily become trapped in this notion of, oh my God, I always have to look stylish and that means this, this and this. And before you know it, I'm living a life of performance versus a life of authenticity. And I just refuse to do that. That's why I will warn some of you all, if you see me in Whole Foods in Charlotte, you may find me in my yoga pants. Now, hopefully they're very cute and well thought out, because that just makes me happy to put together outfits that really feel good, whatever that means for that day. But again, notice how you may have trapped yourself thinking that you have to be a certain version of yourself because that's what others expect you to be. And for me, I have decided that true style is about being comfortable in your own skin and your life, not in someone else's expectations.

Here's what I've learned from that mistake. Your style should evolve as you do. What worked for you five years ago might not reflect who you are today, and that's okay. In fact, I would challenge you to consider that it's a beautiful thing. It means that you are growing as a human. Also, we've already talked about this, but quality doesn't always mean expensive. I discovered that designer labels don't mean nearly as much to me as they used to. I still love quality, but that doesn't mean it should cost thousands. And then authenticity is magnetic. When you dress in a way that truly reflects you, people respond to that energy. And then finally, expectations are often self-imposed. Most of the time the person putting the most pressure on you is yourself, and most people are not even paying attention to you actually. And so free yourself. Free yourself to explore and grow with your style because your style should be reflection of who you are now, not who you used to be.

It's okay to let go of the old to make room for the new. And remember, the most stylish thing you can wear is your authentic self. And this leads me to mistake number five, and I'm calling this one the knowledge gap. And this is the misconception that style is something that you're born with, not something that you learn. And that's what I thought. I thought for years that some women have it and some don't. And boy was I wrong about this one. In fact, when I started to talk to my stylish friends, what I discovered is that most of them grew up in stylish environments. So their mother had a sense of style or their aunt or their sister, they were exposed to it. So it was something in their environment that they learned. And that's what I want you to know. Style is something that you can learn. Because I remember being just feeling I was drowning in fashion magazines, trying to replicate outfits exactly as I saw them.

And the result was I looked like I was wearing someone else's clothes. I felt like a fashion imposter, convinced that I just didn't have the eye for style. And yet, if you all think about it, style is something that we engage with every single day. Every single day we wake up and we get dressed. And so we want to feel like we're good at it. And so we do all of these crazy things like spend a lot of money on things. We collect a lot of clothes. And for me, I even hired a stylist. I thought, for sure this is the answer. And the problem with that was that she didn't really know my style. She could look at me, and I answered some questions for her and she pulled some things for me, but then I ended up putting them on and a couple of things I really liked, but the majority of it just felt off.

And listen, I believe in hiring a stylist once you've figured out what your style is. When you want to save time, you want someone to go out and pull pieces for you. I think that's when a stylist is such an incredible asset. But if you depend on a stylist, that means that you're always going to be turning to her to tell you what looks good on you. And this is what we do in life. Think about it. We turn to other people, tell me what to do. Tell me where I should go. Tell me if I should date this guy. Tell me if this is a good idea. And every time we do that, we lose trust with ourselves. And that's what I was doing with style. I was outsourcing my style in hopes that someone could save me. When in reality, style is such a learnable skill.

And I will never forget reading this book. It was many, many years ago. So if you ask me what the book is, I can't even begin to figure out how to tell you because it was so long ago. But I remember going through this book and thinking, huh, this is a skill set. So if I take some time to learn this skill, then everything else as it relates to my style and my closet will become so much easier. And it turns out my theory was right. Style is a skill. Like any skill, it can be learned, practiced, and improved upon. And knowledge is power. Understanding the principles of style empowers you to make better choices. Also, rules are made to be broken. But you need to know them first to break them effectively. Personal style is a journey. It evolves as you learn and you grow.

Style education isn't about conforming to rules and trends. It's about gaining the tools to express your unique self fully and confidently. And again, this was the piece that was missing. I think if I could do one thing differently, it would've been to learn this early on. I think about all of the money I would've saved, the better outfits that I would've put together, that would've felt more true to me. That would've happened much sooner had I put style education at the forefront of my journey. But again, no one told me this. No one told me, "Hey, listen, Ton, you can learn this." I did it through a lot of trial and error, seeing what works, what doesn't. I then went on to study this professionally, but I wish I would've done it sooner. Because again, I think about all of the days and nights in my closet thinking I have nothing to wear.

I can think about the drama of packing for trips and how much anxiety I had. I can think about all of the money wasted, and I don't like to think of wasting money because I think money is a renewable resource, but when you have clothes in your closet that are just hanging there with tags still on them, there is a misuse of your resources. And I personally was guilty of that, and that was part of my learning journey, so I don't beat myself up over it. However, style education, if you're someone who is struggling in this area of your life and you really want to feel empowered, you want to feel amazing in your clothes, you want to understand how to shop better, you want to save money, actually. Style education is so important. And so there you have it, my friends, my top five style mistakes.

If any of these resonated with you, remember, awareness is the first step to change. We've all been there. And the journey to personal style is just that. It's just a journey. When I look at each of these mistakes, what I know is that they have taught me valuable lessons about not only style, but self-expression and self-love. They were actually the catalyst to me creating the style experience where we go much deeper into the journey of style. And it also inspired me to create something else for you all. I'm so excited to share this. In case you did not hear, we are about to host a free five-day style challenge. It actually starts tomorrow, and this is where you're going to learn small timeless style principles each day that you can apply immediately to elevate your personal style. I created this challenge because I've done style challenges in the past that I couldn't relate to.

Actually, some were telling me to pair florals with stripes and to do things that didn't resonate with my particular style. And so I wanted to create a challenge that no matter what your style is, no matter what your budget is, no matter where you live and what your lifestyle is, you can learn something from this. Again, small timeless style principles that we are going to be practicing each of these five days. So if you want to join us, all you have to do is go to schoolofselfimage.com/stylechallenge. All together, schoolofselfimage.com/stylechallenge, and come join us.

We're going to have so much fun. And I hope I get to see you in the challenge. And remember this, style isn't about perfection. It is about authenticity. It's about joy. It's about waking up each day, opening your closet, and seeing a reflection of the amazing woman that you are. And don't be afraid to make style mistakes. They are a part of the journey. But if I can support you at all in limiting those mistakes, I would love to. And that's why I think that you're going to love the style challenge. So again, go to schoolofselfimage.com/stylechallenge. I will see you there. We start tomorrow. And hopefully I will see you on next week's episode. Cheers.

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Listen to the Full Episode:Gentle Persistence: A Journey of Sauntering Towards Success

Sauntering beyond your limits is a powerful approach that involves combining ambition with ease, playfulness with purpose, and approaching obstacles with curiosity rather than frustration. In the podcast episode, Tonya Leigh discusses how sauntering involves walking with purpose yet unhurried, being playful yet focused, and curious yet determined. This approach allows individuals to maintain a sense of calm and gratitude while pursuing their goals, even in the face of challenges.

By sauntering beyond your limits, you are encouraged to adopt a mindset that values the journey as much as the destination. Instead of constantly pushing yourself to go faster and do more, sauntering allows you to explore your limits with a sense of curiosity and openness. When faced with obstacles, the sauntering approach encourages individuals to stop, assess the situation, and consider alternative paths or solutions. This contrasts with the typical hustle culture that promotes pushing through obstacles without taking the time to reflect or adjust course.

Join Tonya as she discusses the power of taking a more relaxed and enjoyable approach to personal development and life.

Episode Details:01:41 - The Concept of Sauntering

02:24 - Visualization Exercise

03:17 - Sprinting vs. Sauntering

05:02 - Curiosity Over Frustration

06:28 - Expanding Limits

07:43 - Playful Exploration

08:46 - Creative Problem Solving

11:02 - Detaching from the Outcome

16:02 - Lessons from Nature

20:36 - Micro-Adventures

22:02 - Style Challenge

Useful Resources:* Join the FREE 5-Day Style Challenge: https://schoolofselfimage.com/stylechallenge/ * Join the Membership: https://schoolofselfimage.com/join * FREE Download: https://schoolofselfimage.com/self-image-manifesto * Sign up for the Weekly Edit: http://schoolofselfimage.com/edit

Connect with Master Life Coach Tonya Leigh: Instagram: @schoolofselfimage * Website: https://schoolofselfimage.com * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TonyaLeighOfficial * TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thetonyaleigh * YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@schoolofselfimageOfficial DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:*Have you ever felt like you're constantly running on a treadmill chasing after your goals, but never quite catching your breath? Well, what if I told you that there is a way to achieve your dreams without burning yourself out, a way that's not only effective but actually enjoyable? Today we are going to explore the art of Sauntering Beyond Your Limits, a very powerful approach that combines ambition with ease and playfulness with purpose. So take a deep breath and let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello friends. Welcome to another week of the podcast. How have you been? I have had a very full week. It seems like we've had a revolving door of company coming to stay with us. My dad is sick and so I've been going back and forth to spend time with him and my mom, and we have a lot of exciting things going on within the School of Self-Image that will be revealed very soon. But I was thinking the other day of how I feel overall and quite honestly, I feel very grateful for so many things. And even though a lot's going on, I'm relatively calm right now, and I think it has to do with what today's episode is all about, sauntering beyond your limits, because we live in a world that's always telling us to push harder, go faster, do more. It's all hustle culture and no pain, no gain, and I have found myself in the past wondering, "How can I keep up?" Maybe you felt the same way.

Years ago, I remember very clearly the day when I had the question, how do you combine ambition with ease? That's when it hit me, the image of sauntering towards my goals and sauntering beyond my limits. Now, what I want you to do is I want you to close your eyes for a second if you can, if you're driving or out for a walk, don't. But if you're in a place where you can close your eyes, I want you to imagine yourself just walking with purpose but unhurried, you're playful, yet focused, you are curious, yet determined, and I want you to really see yourself in that energy because that is the energy of sauntering, my friends. If you look up the word saunter, it means to walk leisurely and within that leisurely walk, there is curiosity. There's often a sense of awe. There's often a sense of playfulness, and it's definitely an unhurried energy, and I've been playing with this concept for almost two decades now, and let me tell you, it has been a game changer.

And here's the little secret. Whenever I have found myself out of what I call my sweet spot, it's usually because I've stopped sauntering and I've started sprinting. Now, I want to be clear that I understand that there are seasons when you intentionally sprint and that sprint is driven out of passion, out of excitement, out of commitment, but all too often we stay in that mode and if we pay attention, we'll realize, wow, it's no longer being driven out of positive emotion, it's being driven out of fear, out of anxiety, out of worry, and that is a pace that's impossible to keep up. What I've also discovered is that with intention and with some of the principles that I'm going to talk about in this episode, your sprints can start to feel more like a saunter. And here's where it gets really interesting. What happens when you encounter a limit or an obstacle while sauntering? Really think about it. If you're out for a leisurely stroll through a beautiful garden and you're admiring the flowers, feeling the breeze on your skin and suddenly, bam, you encounter a wall in front of you.

Now, first of all, if you were sprinting, you might get a little bruised up, you might crash right into it and you will feel defeated. But when you're sauntering, that's a different story. When you hit a wall and you're sauntering, you first of all have the presence of mind to stop and really look at it. You might not even hit it because you have the awareness to see it right before you're upon it. But when you get to it, you'll start to ask questions like, is it really as solid as it seems? Are there any cracks or maybe there's a door you didn't notice, or perhaps you can simply walk around it. You see, when you're sauntering, you approach your limits with curiosity rather than frustration. You may ask yourself, "What can I learn from this obstacle? How can I work with it rather than against it?" It's not about bulldozing through your limit, but rather about dancing with it, exploring it, and gently expanding it.

I remember when I first started my business, I hit a wall when it came to public speaking, it was definitely an upper limit. And quite honestly, the thought of standing on a stage made my knees weak. In fact, one of the very first talks I gave, literally I was shaking so bad I had to request a chair. I thought I was about to pass out, and I realized that maybe there was a different approach. So from that experience, I started to saunter towards being a speaker. And what that looked like for me is I started just speaking to small groups of friends about the topics I was passionate about, and then I moved to larger groups and I played with different speaking styles until I found one that felt truly authentic to me. And eventually before I knew it, I was standing on stages sharing my message with hundreds of people and actually enjoying it.

To me, that's what sauntering beyond your limits can feel like. It's not about ignoring your limitations or pretending they don't exist. It's about acknowledging them, respecting them, and gently, playfully and curiously expanding them. It's about realizing that most limits are not brick walls, but rather rubber bands that can stretch and grow as we do. Now, think about this, think about sauntering beyond your limits being like climbing a beautiful mountain, you're not racing to the top. Instead, you're taking your time to rest when you need it, you're stopping to enjoy the scenery and maybe snapping a mental picture or two. And yes, there will be moments when you think you can't make it, especially if that peak is taller than anything you've climbed before.

But here's the magic. What you may not realize is that with each step you're getting stronger, more capable. You're literally sauntering beyond what you thought were your limits. So how do you bring the sauntering energy into your daily life? Well, I've got a few ideas for you. First, I want you to think about playful exploration. As kids, we approached everything with curiosity and playfulness, but somewhere along the way, we got the message that being an adult means being serious all the time. We've forgotten how to play, but a lot of successful people in the world have become successful because of their playful approaches to overcoming their limitations.

I think about the story of Dr. Spencer Silver at 3M. He was trying to create a super strong adhesive, but instead he accidentally created a very weak one. Think about it. He could have gotten very frustrated and given up, but instead he started to play with the idea and he wondered, "What if we actually need a weak adhesive sometimes?" And that playful curious exploration, actually led him to invent the Post-it Notes. So sometimes our failures can lead to our biggest breakthroughs if we approach them with a sense of curiosity and play.

One of the things that I have found to be very helpful when I am hitting up against an upper limit or I'm struggling with an obstacle is to get my creativity going by coming up with just silly solutions. Next time you're overwhelmed with something and you're trying to figure something out, just take a deep breath and then brainstorm the most ridiculous over the top solutions that you can imagine. I remember there was a time where I was really struggling to declutter. It was a big limit for me. It was an upper limit and obstacle, and I thought, "Wouldn't it be fun to host a reverse birthday party where when people came over, instead of bringing you something, they all had to take 10 things out of your house." That was their gift to you, removing 10 things from your house to make it less cluttered.

If you want to exercise more, you could create a dance floor pathway from your bedroom to your kitchen so that every time you walk in that direction on that path, you have to dance your way to the kitchen. Or I did this one one time, I was in a habit of procrastinating. It was definitely a limit for me, and I just remember imagining every time I procrastinate at my desk that my desk chair just starts to sink into the floor, and so if I don't get to work, it's just going to keep sinking. I know it's so silly, but it's just a fun way to think about creative solutions. It's not that you have to do any of them, but it is lightening up a little bit. It's looking for all kinds of creative ways to deal with life's problems.

So what is a challenge that you're facing right now? Maybe the challenge is you can't stop overeating. Maybe the challenge is you're having a difficult time growing your social media following. Maybe you're having a difficult time attracting a partner. Come up with some fun, playful, silly solutions that will get your brain working in a creative way and inject some playfulness and into your problem solving. And remember what Plato said, "You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation." So why not discover something new about yourself through play? That is the essence of sauntering beyond your limits.

Now, I want to talk about the art of gentle persistence. This is all about sauntering towards your goals instead of rushing or forcing progress. It's acknowledging that sustainable growth often happens slowly and consistently. Think about it like this. Have you ever tried to force a flower to bloom? It doesn't work, does it? But with consistent care, sunlight, water, and patience, it opens up in its own time and you can apply the same principle to your own growth. Instead of trying to overhaul your entire life overnight, what if you committed to moving one small pebble towards your goal each day? This could be as simple as writing one paragraph of that book you've been dreaming about, doing one push-up if you're working on your fitness, or making one business call if you're trying to grow your network, I call this the Daily Pebble, and it's been a game changer for me. It takes something that may feel really big and it makes it doable. It takes the pressure off, and it allows me and hopefully you to make progress without burning out. Remember, we're sauntering here. We're not sprinting.

I think about what Winnie the Pooh said, "Rivers know this. There is no hurry. We shall get there someday," and you will too. One gentle step at a time. Now, here's something that ties all of this together. To truly saunter beyond your limits, you must practice detaching from the outcome. I know, it sounds counterintuitive. We're so used to fixating on results, on crossing that finish line, on achieving that thing. But here's the thing. When you're too attached to the outcome, you miss the magic of the journey, and you're always in a state of not being there yet. And reminding yourself day after day of not being there yet starts to concern and scarcity and frustration and a lack of patience.

I think back to many years ago when I decided I wanted to run a marathon, I was all about that end result, crossing that finish line, hopefully getting a medal, and I pushed myself hard. I ignored my body, and guess what? I injured myself before I even got to the starting line. I was so focused on the destination that I missed out on, the joy and growth that was happening along the way. So I decided to saunter towards my marathon. I shifted my perspective and I set a new goal. And that goal was to enjoy the process of becoming a runner by detaching from the outcome of a specific distance or time.

What I did is I just started to focus on the daily act of getting outside and going for a run. And you know what happened? Not only did I start to love running, but I eventually completed that marathon and went on to run a second one. And I actually enjoyed the process. Sure I was running, but it felt like the energy of a saunter simply by changing my approach and not being so attached to running it in a certain time, but just enjoying the process of becoming a runner. One thing you can do, I think this is a really fun exercise, is to write down one thing every day that you've enjoyed while working towards your goal. No matter how small.

Maybe you loved the feeling of the sun on your face when you went out for a run, or the satisfaction you felt when you solved a tricky problem at work, do this every day for a month and at the end of the month read through all of your answers and you'll start to see that the joy is in the journey all along. It's not in the destination. Of course, it feels great to reach goals, but it truly is who you become in the process and really just savoring the growth that you experience when you stop being so attached to the outcome and just appreciate the daily journey of sauntering towards your goals.

What I have discovered is that when I detach from the outcome, I actually open myself up to possibilities that I couldn't have imagined. I've become more resilient, more creative, and ironically, I've often achieved more than I initially set out to do. It feels like you are dancing with life rather than wrestling with it. Now, I know that this is easier said than done. Our brain, it tries to convince us that the joy is going to happen when we get there, but what I also know is, if you make yourself miserable towards obtaining that goal, you're not going to enjoy achieving it as much as you think. So the way to actually do this is what I work a lot with School of Self-Image members on, and that is to have the goals, have that ambition. It's there for a reason and it is a beautiful thing, but bring it back to your daily life and fall in love with the process. If you're just attached to the outcome, you are not going to enjoy the process, but when you enjoy the process, you are much more likely to achieve that outcome.

Now, we can also turn to nature to learn a thing or two about sauntering towards our goals because if you've noticed, nature doesn't rush yet, everything gets accomplished. Have you ever really watched a tree grow? Depending on the tree, it's a very slow process, but the results are magnificent. I've always been just fascinated with the bamboo tree because for the first few years after it's planted, you see no visible growth above the ground. But what you don't see is that during this time, it's developing this extensive root system. Then almost overnight, it can grow up to 80 feet in just 6 weeks. And I think that this is often how our personal growth works. We might feel like we're not making much progress, but beneath the service, if you are committed to the process, if you're sauntering towards your goals and beyond your limits, what you're doing is you're developing the roots that will support your future growth.

I've experienced my own bamboo-like growth in many areas of my life. One being with my business. I think back to when I first started my business and I had a newsletter that I would send out every single week like clockwork. And in the beginning it was just my mom and dad reading it. I didn't have a lot of email subscribers at all, and they would trickle in, but for the longest time, it felt like nothing was really happening. But I kept at it. I focused on the process, not the outcome. I focused on providing value, on creating really great content, on connecting with my readers, on being consistent. And then right around, I think it was like the two-year mark, I don't know what happened, but it was incredible. It was like exponential growth. It was like the bamboo tree. It felt like overnight it started to multiply. All that work, all that consistency, all that patience, it paid off in ways I couldn't have imagined. And it's led to where I am today.

Sometimes people look at me today and they're like, "You're so lucky." They don't realize I've been doing this for almost 20 years. Being consistent, showing up, providing value, failing in the process, having my obstacles, being playful, trying to figure it out, sauntering beyond my own limits. Next time you're out in nature, just spend some time observing a natural object. It could be a tree, a flower, or even a landscape could be a river, whatever. And just think about how the characteristics of that object and think about how it mirrors your own growth journey. If it's a river, maybe all of the twists and turns reflect all of the twists and turns that you've had in your life. If it's a tree, maybe you're thinking about the growth rings inside of it and how it relates to all of your own layers of experience that you've had over the years. As Alice Walker, beautifully said, "In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they're still beautiful." And the same is true for your journey. It doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful.

Now, one last recommendation for sauntering beyond your limits is to create what I call microadventures. These are small, achievable challenges that gradually expand your comfort zone. They're like practice runs for sauntering beyond your limits. I just have found in my own life, it's been these little stretches, these little, going a little bit beyond what I thought I could do, trying something a little bit beyond my comfort zone that over time has grown me the most. And the crazy thing is, when you're doing it, it doesn't seem like a lot. You stretch a little bit, but not a lot. But imagine those little stretches over time. You literally become a whole new person.

And some people will tell you, "Really put yourself out there. Really put yourself on stages and pass out. You'll be okay." And of course you will. But I'm suggesting that maybe there's a more gentle approach where we don't make our nervous systems freak out quite so much, but we gradually expand our comfort zones. So each week I want you to just do something that's slightly outside of your comfort zone. It doesn't have to be big. It might be trying a new cuisine, or taking a different route to work, or striking up a conversation with a stranger. These small steps can lead to big changes in how you see yourself and what you believe is possible.

Now, speaking of micro adventures, I have something exciting for you. I'm so excited about this. I want to challenge you to expand your style limits, and that is why I have created a free five day style challenge. I just filmed this a few weeks ago. My team flew in, we filmed it in my closet. We laughed so hard. We had so much fun. And it's all about expanding beyond what you think might be possible with style. These are timeless principles presented in easy, doable steps that will elevate your style. And it's not about following trends or conforming to someone else's idea of fashion.

In fact, when I was creating this challenge, because I've done style challenges before that, quite frankly, I couldn't relate to. They were saying like, "Today, pair of polka dots with stripes." And I'm like, "Well, I don't have polka dots. It's not my style." I created this style challenge very purposefully that no matter what your style is, you may be classic, you may be a minimalist, you might be edgy, you might be dramatic, it doesn't matter. These style principles are applicable to everyone, and they're the exact principles that I have used to elevate my own style. This is about discovering and expressing your unique self through personal style.

And each day, I'm going to give you a little micro adventure, a small, manageable task that will gently hopefully push you outside of your style comfort zone just a little bit. It is going to be so much fun. Because remember, style isn't just about clothes. It is a form of self-expression, a way of showing the world who you are without saying a word. So by expanding your style limits, you're also expanding your self image and your confidence. And the best part, you'll be doing it in a supportive community of like-minded women. We are all sauntering towards a more stylish, confident version of ourselves.

So to join the five day free style adventure, all you have to do is go to schoolofselfimage.com/stylechallenge. It is completely free, and I promise you it's going to be fun, enlightning and maybe even a little bit life changing. There's a great quote by John Amott where he said, "Adventure hanging on a rope off the side of a mountain. Adventure is an attitude that we must apply to the day-to-day obstacles in life." And sometimes that adventure can start right in your own closet. So make sure you join us for the free five day Style Challenge. And as we wrap up this episode, I want you to remember this. You have the power to saunter beyond your limits. You can be ambitious and enjoy your life. You can make progress without burning out. You're capable of so much more than you know.

The next time you encounter a limit in your life, I want you to imagine yourself sauntering up to it. You're not trying to run through it. You're also not running away from it. You are simply sauntering up to it. Take a deep breath and get curious. Ask yourself, "How can I play with this limit? How can I gently stretch it? How can I have fun with this limit?" And you might be surprised at how much give those limits really have when you approach them with the energy of a saunter. And remember, it's not about the destination, it's about the dance. Detach from the outcome and you'll find so much freedom that you didn't even know existed, and you'll probably find that you're able to achieve your goals faster.

So take a deep breath, fill your feet on the ground and take that next step. Not a sprint, not a leap, but a saunter. And trust me, the view from the top of the mountain is so worth it, especially, this is very important, especially when you've enjoyed the journey along the way. So until next week, keep sauntering my friends, and I will see you on the next episode. Cheers.

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Oh, if my closet could talk!

It’s been quite the journey from chaotic fashion hoarder to a curated wardrobe.

I remember when opening my closet door was like unleashing an avalanche of clothes. Packed to the brim, yet somehow, I always felt like I had “nothing to wear.” Believe me, the irony wasn’t lost on me.

The turning point came when I realized my closet was a reflection of my inner state.

Overflowing, disorganized, filled with impulse buys and “maybe someday” outfits - it was exhausting just to look at it.

So, I embarked on a mission – not just to declutter but to truly understand my style, my needs, and, yes, even myself.

It was surprisingly emotional at times (who knew saying goodbye to that never-worn dress could feel so hard and liberating at the same time?).

It’s been an emotional journey - one of being honest with myself and letting go. After all, elegance has more to do with what you release than what you add.

Now, I won’t say that my closet is perfect because it’s not – neither am I. The point isn’t to be perfect; it’s to practice being more intentional. Oh, and to have fun!

Who would have thought the path to personal growth could start in the closet? Life’s funny that way, I guess.

Here's to elegance, simplicity, and closets that make you smile!

With love,

P.S. Now, I sometimes open my closet just to admire it. Is that weird? Don’t answer that!

How A Curated Style Shapes Self-PerceptionSimplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

~ Leonardo da Vinci

Your closet is a reflection of your inner world. A thoughtfully curated wardrobe does more than simplify your morning routine – it profoundly influences how you perceive and present yourself to the world.

When you surround yourself with pieces that truly resonate with your authentic self, you create harmony between your external expression and internal values. This alignment enhances confidence, eases decision-making, and allows you to navigate your day gracefully.

Tomorrow, wear an item that genuinely represents your best self. Observe, with gentle awareness, how it influences your demeanor and interactions throughout the day.

The Soul Style Quiz: Your Path to a Curated ClosetUnlock the secret to a wardrobe that truly reflects you with The Soul Style Quiz. Whether your style is dramatic or classic, understanding your unique archetype is key to curating a closet you love.

This isn’t about following trends or fitting into a box. It’s about discovering clothing that authentically expresses your essence. Align your wardrobe with your inner self, and you’ll not only look great but feel empowered every time you get dressed.

Ready to transform your closet from a source of stress to a wellspring of confidence? Take our free Soul Style Quiz and start your journey to a more intentional, joyful wardrobe.

Take the FREE QuizThe 4 Essentials of an Elegant ClosetDoes your closet spark joy or a small avalanche whenever you open the door? If it’s the latter, you’re in for a treat.

On this week’s podcast, I’m sharing the four key elements that turned my closet from a fashionable Bermuda Triangle into a personal sanctuary. Discover how a thoughtfully arranged wardrobe can bring comfort and confidence to your daily life and elevate your self-image in the process.

Whether you’re looking to refine your style or simply seeking a sense of calm in your morning routine, you’ll begin to see how the sometimes daunting task of wardrobe curation is actually a joyful act of self-expression.

Listen to The Podcast// TheEDIT

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Mornings have always been special to me, but lately, I’ve been captivated by their power to shape the entire day.

It’s like the first domino in a line - how it falls influences everything that follows.

I’ve noticed that the energy I cultivate in those early hours has a remarkable way of sticking with me. The momentum I create at the start of my day keeps me moving in that direction all day long.

If I start my day by talking about how much I need to do, the pile of overwhelm becomes the central focus that drives the day. On the other hand, if I start my day with gratitude, I see blessings all day.

Through some experimentation, I’ve honed in on my favorite morning routines, which have elevated my already good mornings to a whole new level.

These aren’t random habits I found online - they’re practices aligned with my goals and personality (which is what yours should be, too!).

I deeply believe intentional mornings are a great place to start for creating a well-lived life.

Here’s to beautiful beginnings and the incredible power of well-crafted mornings.

With love,

P.S. I hope my evening self fully appreciates how my morning self sets her up for success every day.

Reframing Your Relationship with MorningsThe breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep.

~ Rumi

Mornings aren’t just about waking up; they’re about waking up to possibility. What if you started viewing your mornings as a sacred time for self-investment rather than a rushed routine? This shift in perspective may transform your entire day.

Tonight, set an intention for tomorrow morning. Write it down and place it by your bedside. When you wake up, read it aloud and let it guide your first thoughts and actions of the day.

Revolutionize Your Morning Routine with The Soul Style QuizWhether you’re dressing up for the office or staying cozy in loungewear, choosing what to wear shapes your day – and, ultimately, your life. What if this daily decision could spark joy, not stress?

Unlock your style archetype with our free Soul Style quiz and transform those daily “What should I wear?” moments into an empowering part of your morning ritual.

By aligning your wardrobe with your authentic self, you’ll kiss decision fatigue goodbye and step into each day feeling confident and inspired. This goes beyond fashion – it’s about setting a powerful tone for your day, whatever it holds.

Discover your Soul Style with this insightful quiz and get ready to embrace more authentic, effortless mornings.

Take the FREE QuizBeautiful Beginnings: My Favorite Morning RitualsIn this week’s podcast, I’m pulling back the curtain on my personal morning rituals and how I’ve cultivated them in a way that’s truly transformed how I start my days. I’ll share how I gradually built these rituals, the impact they’ve had on my overall well-being, and how you can create your own morning magic.

This isn’t about copying my routine; it’s about inspiring you to create a morning ritual that resonates with your unique needs and aspirations. Join me as we explore the power of beautiful beginnings and how they can shape not just your day but your entire life.

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Listen to the Full Episode:Interior Design for the Soul: 5 Life Lessons to Elevate Your Self-Image

One crucial aspect of embracing contrast in life is recognizing and integrating all facets of oneself, including the shadow side. Tonya Leigh explores the significance of embracing contrast in interior design and how it can be applied to life. Just as in design, where contrasting elements can add depth and richness, embracing the diverse aspects of our personalities enables us to explore neglected or denied facets of ourselves, fostering personal growth and self-acceptance.

Tonya stresses the concept of the shadow side, a term introduced by psychologist Carl Jung, which refers to the darker, less desirable aspects of our personalities that we often try to conceal or suppress. She underscores the importance of not only showcasing our positive traits but also acknowledging and accepting the parts of ourselves that may not always be bright and cheerful.

Tune in to explore the parallels between interior design choices and self-image transformation.

Episode Details:00:52 - Chaotic House and Podcast Recording

01:45 - Interior Design Lessons for Life

02:06 - First Impressions and Self-Image

03:09 - Designing Your Environment for Self-Image

04:40 - Creative Brief and Future Vision

06:10 - Curating Elements of Life

07:04 - Intentional Curation Beyond Physical Spaces

08:19 - Five Key Interior Design Principles

09:12 - Lesson 1: Embrace Contrast

13:20 - Lesson 2: Create Focal Points

19:15 - Lesson 3: Functionality is Essential

25:00 - Lesson 4: Embrace White Space

31:07 - Lesson 5: Don't Be Afraid of Making Mistakes

37:02 - Ongoing Process of Life Design

38:40 - Conclusion and Application

38:50 - Invitation to Soul Style Quiz

Useful Resources:* Soul Style Quiz: http://schoolofselfimage.com/stylequi * Join Now: https://schoolofselfimage.com/join * FREE Download:https://schoolofselfimage.com/self-image-manifesto/ * Sign up for the Weekly Edit: http://schoolofselfimage.com/edit

Connect with Master Life Coach Tonya Leigh: Instagram: @schoolofselfimage * Website: https://schoolofselfimage.com * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TonyaLeighOfficial * TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thetonyaleigh * YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@schoolofselfimageOfficial DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:*Did you know that the principles of interior design could hold the key to changing your self-image and therefore your life? Well, it's what I discovered when I was designing my home. Think about it. Just as we thoughtfully curate our living spaces, we can intentionally design our lives to reflect our truest selves and support our personal growth, and that's what we're exploring in today's episode. I am sharing the five powerful life lessons I learned from interior design that can help you create a life as beautiful and authentic as a well-designed home. So let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach Tonya Leigh.

Hello my friends, and welcome to this episode of the podcast. I'm going to apologize ahead of time because it is a little chaotic in my house today. In fact, you may hear a little bit of jazz playing in the background because I turned it on to hopefully drown out the noise of the contractors who are still in my house working. We are moved in, but we are not complete. In fact, someone reached out to me on Instagram and she was saying, "I've been at my house for like four years and it still isn't quite complete." And I told her, I'm like, "You know, I think the idea of being done is a fallacy." There are always more things to do. But I needed to get this podcast recorded. I cannot wait until everyone is out of the house, so we're just going to go with it. Fingers crossed it won't get too loud. But I want to talk today about the interior design lessons that I have discovered really apply to our lives.

Because you might be wondering, what does choosing a sofa or planning a room layout have to do with self-image and my life? Well, I discovered a lot of parallels between designing a home and crafting our self-image, and I want to share those with you. I want you to think about it. When you walk into someone's home, you immediately start forming impressions about who they are. Think about the last time you visited someone for the first time and what did you think about them just based on their home alone? One of the things that I am always fascinated by is when I rent an Airbnb or any kind of rental property and I know nothing about the people that live there, but I can somewhat get an idea of who they are, what they value, what their priorities are, how they live their life, just based on their home alone. If it's a minimalist space, I might think that this is someone who values simplicity and clarity. If it's a home filled with travel souvenirs, I might think this person really loves experience and adventure.

In the same way the home of our self-image, the way we present ourselves to the world, the habits we cultivate, the goals we pursue tells a story about who we are. But here's where it gets really interesting to me. Just as when we intentionally design our living spaces, we can deliberately shape our self-image. And one powerful way to do this is by consciously creating your environment that reflects not just who we are now, but who we are becoming. I think back to when I first started designing my home. I remember standing on the lot. It was an empty lot and I was thinking about the type of floor plans and I was even thinking about the colors, and it was the beginning of me doing what I do for every single project in my life, in my business, and it's something that I've actually taken School of Self-Image members behind the scenes to actually see.

But I create a creative brief and it's a beautiful way of really going to the end as if it's already done and getting into the feeling of it, getting into the details of it, thinking about how you want to feel, thinking about what you want to think about it at the end. And if you've watched that behind the scenes, I tell you about some of the questions that I ask myself for this creative brief. And I think what I'm going to do for members is I'm going to show you my creative brief from my house. It's really, really fascinating. But standing on that empty lot, it was the beginning of me conceptualizing and visualizing my home, and I went to the future, and not just the future of the home, but I went to the future of me and my life, how I want to live my life, how I want to feel in my life.

And basically this house was just me reverse engineering that. A lot of times what we do is we look either to the past or to the present for what's possible, and what I teach in the School of Self-Image is looking for possibilities in the future. And then it's about forming your goals, your beliefs, even how you show up, your habits, your behaviors around that future vision that you have for yourself. And so I know it sounds crazy, you all, but the materials I chose, the colors I chose, how I laid out my house, all has a role in shaping self-image. So as I walked through each decision in my home building process and especially around the interior design, I found myself asking, does this choice align with who I'm becoming? Does it support the self-image I want to step into? And that's when it hit me when I was going through all of this later on in the process. We're all, in a sense, the interior designers of our own lives and our self-image.

Just as we curate our living spaces, we can curate the elements of our lives that shape how we see ourselves. This process of intentional curation isn't just limited to physical spaces, it really does extend to every aspect of our lives. Think about it. The books you read and the media you consume shape your mental environment, influencing your thoughts and your beliefs about yourself and your worldview, the people you surround yourself with, form our social environment affecting how you see yourself in relationship to others. The habits you cultivate and the routines you establish create a behavioral environment reinforcing or challenging our self-image daily. So by consciously designing these environments, we're not just passively accepting a self-image that may be working against what we deeply want in our lives. Instead, we are actively crafting it. We're creating a feedback loop where we intentionally design our environments, continually reinforcing and elevating our self-image, and that's what we're all about here at the school.

We believe that by deliberately shaping our external world, we can profoundly influence our internal landscape. We can design a life that not only reflects our best selves, but actively encourages us to grow into that best self. So today I want to explore five key interior design principles and see how they can guide us in crafting not just a beautiful living space, although that is a benefit, but also a self-image and a life that truly feels good to us and represent who we aspire to be. And who you aspire to be, here's my theory, it's who you truly are. Underneath all of the limiting beliefs, all of the social pressures, it's who you are at your essence. So these principles offer, I think, valuable insights into how we can shape our environment, both physical and metaphorical, to support our growth, our happiness, and our success.

As we dive into these lessons, I really want you to think about your own life and self-image and how you can apply these design concepts to create a life that's not just lived, but thoughtfully designed. How can you shape your environment to reinforce the self-image that you want to cultivate? How can you build a life that's as beautiful, functional, and uniquely you as a well-designed home? Remember, just as a well-designed home supports and enhances your daily life, a well-designed can elevate every aspect of your existence. It can inspire you to reach for higher goals, it can inspire you to treat yourself with kindness and love and to show up in the world as your best self. So here are five of actually many lessons that I learned about interior design, about designing a home. There's so many lessons, you all. I had a hard time picking my top five because I learned so much in this process, but let's go with the top five.

The first interior design lesson that you can apply to your life is to embrace contrast. I realized that in design, and even our style, embracing contrast is key to well thought out design. And this may mean pairing light and dark colors or mixing modern and vintage pieces, but when you apply it to your life and your self-image, it takes on a deeper meaning. Think about it. We often try to present only our best, brightest selves to the world. We curate our social media feeds to showcase only our success and our happiest moments, but true personal growth and I think a really healthy, authentic self-image comes from acknowledging and integrating all parts of ourselves. This is what psychologist Carl Jung called our shadow side, and we all have it, and a lot of us, if we're not mindful, we spend a big part of our lives trying to hide it. But I do believe what you suppress grows bigger. When you don't acknowledge and leave space for this darker side, so to speak, it causes problems in our lives.

It's what happens when we don't want to feel negative emotion. It's what happens when we don't acknowledge the things that maybe we're not good at. It's what happens when we try to only present our best selves to the world. And when I think about my home, I think my dining room represents this principle beautifully. It's darker and moodier than the rest of my house. In fact, it's painted black, it's Pharaoh and Ball off black. It is so rich and deep with very dramatic lighting, and it serves as a reminder that it's okay, even necessary, to embrace the full spectrum of who I am, including the parts that aren't always sunny and light. And just like how this dining room adds depth and interest to my home, that's what contrasts do to our personalities. They add this richness to our lives and our self-image. It's about creating space for all aspects of who we are.

For example, you might be known as the responsible one among your friends. Your self-image might be built around being reliable and organized, but maybe there's a part of you that craves spontaneity and adventure and you've suppressed that. Well, embracing the contrast can mean allowing yourself occasional impulsive of trips or trying out a thrilling new hobby. And by doing so, you're expanding your self-image, seeing yourself as someone who can be both responsible and spontaneous. You might even want to find a corner of your home that represents this part of your self. It could be a little table in the corner of your bedroom. It could be a shelf in your dining room. But it's important that we shape our environment to reflect back to us all parts of ourselves, the parts that we don't want to deny, that we don't want to hide because it's so exhausting.

Another example is that maybe you're typically very analytical in your work and your self-image is really tied to being logical and rational, but you might have a secret passion for abstract art or poetry. Integrating this contrast could involve setting aside some time for creative pursuits or allowing that artistic side to flourish alongside your logical strengths. And this expands your self-image to be both analytical and creative. You don't have to be one or the other. The key is to recognize that these contrasts aren't contradictions. They are complementary aspects of your whole self. By embracing them, you create a richer, more authentic life experience and a more complete self-image. So for this particular lesson, what I want you to think about is acknowledging and accepting all of your different moods and energies rather than always trying to be on, always trying to be positive, always trying to be happy. Also, create spaces in your home that really reflect the different aspects of your personality.

Allow yourself to pursue interests or hobbies that might seem at odds with your primary identity and then be open about your struggles as well as your successes both with yourself and others. When you embrace the contrast, you give yourself permission to be a whole human with all of the complexity that it entails, and that in turn really does create and foster a more authentic, confident, and multifaceted self-image. The second lesson that I discovered really relates to life is to create focal points. A focal point in a room might be a statement piece of furniture or a striking piece of art. It's that element that immediately draws your eye because remember, the eye must travel, and it sets the tone for the entire space. In life and self-image, it's about identifying and emphasizing your core strengths and unique gifts.

Think of your life as a room. What do you want people to notice first when they walk in? What aspect of yourself do you want to highlight? These are your focal points, that special sauce that makes you, you. During my home-building process, I put a lot of thought into the focal points of each room. In my living room, it's a beautiful, beloved marble fireplace. I was telling some of the members the other day, it is my favorite piece in the house. I love this marble fireplace, and every time I go into the room, that is where my eye goes. It reminds me of the warmth and the comfort I want my home to embody. And it's also just a very elegant old world piece that represents more of my classic nature, my classic soul style. But in the same way, we can create focal points in our lives that remind us of our core values and our strengths, our goals, and these focal points become the anchors for our self-image.

When we are facing decisions, when we are deciding what to really showcase and highlight, these anchors become your guide. They tell you what to come back to. They bring you back home to yourself. And I want to be clear, this isn't about bragging or showing off, it's about recognizing your innate talents and cultivating them. Maybe you're an excellent listener, a creative problem solver, or have a knack for bringing people together. These are your focal points, those special qualities that define your unique contribution to the world. If one of your strengths is empathy, you might create opportunities to use this gift more often. This can mean volunteering for a local organization or simply being more intentional about supporting friends and family through tough times. By doing so, you're reinforcing your self-image as a compassionate, supportive person. Or maybe your gift is creativity. Your focal point might be a passion project that really showcases your innovative thinking. This could become a centerpiece of your personal or professional life, drawing others to your unique perspective.

The more you engage with this project, the more you reinforce your self-image as a creative, original thinker. I want you to think about this. Just as a room typically has one main focal point, you don't need to excel at everything. I think this is a huge mistake in our culture. We try to be good at so many different things versus really focusing and harnessing on the things that we're naturally good at. In fact, as I was preparing for this episode, I was thinking back to moments in life where I've been what I call out of my sweet spot. It's that place in your life where you are really in your flow. You feel like life is just clicking in a way that feels almost effortless. And one of the things that I've noticed is because I'm not focused on my focal points, I am trying to be something that's very difficult for me to naturally be, I'm trying to do things that aren't my strength, and whenever I let go and I get back to my focal points, I get closer to my sweet spot.

So I want you to think about your life and self-image and identify your key strengths. And then it's a matter of you using those as focal points in your life. Finding ways to showcase these strengths in your work and in your home, and then create physical reminders of your core values and your living space or your workspace to remind you of what's really important to you, and then regularly engage in activities that allow you to really honor your core values and to develop and focus on your unique gifts. When you create clear focal points for yourself, you give shape and direction to your life, you create a strong sense of identity and purpose, and that just boosts your confidence and your self-image. So just as a well-chosen focal point can elevate an entire room, when you emphasize your core strengths and focus on your core values, you really do elevate your entire sense of self.

Now, let's talk about interior design lesson number three, functionality is essential. In interior design, this means ensuring that a space not only looks good, but it also serves its intended purpose efficiently. I call this elegant design because elegance simply means effective and simple. So when you apply this to your life and your self-image, it's about making choices that genuinely enhance your well-being and align with your goals rather than just doing what looks good on the surface or what you think people will accept. For example, when I was working with my designer on my kitchen, we were trying to figure out how the kitchen was going to work. In my kitchen, I don't have cabinets, I have drawers. And so I literally would stand in my kitchen and pretend that I had people around and I'm trying to cook. I really thought through the dishwasher and I open it, and how easy is it to put dishes away? So my kitchen is very functional, but it's also very beautiful.

I don't think it has to be one or the other. I am all about yes, and. How can you have both beauty that's beautiful to you and functionality? I also think about my pantry. I really debated if I wanted to put my pantry behind closed doors because this is where I have all of my appliances. They're out to be seen. And I decided that I wanted to have an open concept because I wanted to be able to quickly grab things. I didn't want to have to open a door to get to my flour or my mixer. I wanted it easily accessible. And so we decided to leave it open. There is actually a doorway you can see into my pantry from my living room and from my kitchen. But it's also beautiful. It's very well organized, the appliances are very tastefully displayed, and it really does create this homey feeling. It's not just a beautiful space, but it's a lived in. It's for cooking and memories, and I think it just contributes to the overall aesthetic of the kitchen.

And it really embodies the idea that functional doesn't have to mean purely utilitarian. It can be a feature that enhances both the usability of the space and the beauty as well. In the same way, when we're designing our lives and shaping our self-image, we need to prioritize our choices so that they're not just appealing on the surface, but they truly serve us in the long run and they become more beautiful aspects of who we are. For example, you might be tempted to take a high paying job because it sounds impressive and would boost your image as a successful professional, but if it requires a long commute and doesn't align with your values, it might not be a functional choice for you and your overall life satisfaction. A more functional choice might be a job that maybe pays a little less, but offers more fulfillment and better work-life balance. Over time, this choice could lead to a more genuine sense of success, a feeling of success that you have built based upon what you think is truly successful for you, your values and how you want to live your life, and I think that just always leads to a more confident self-image.

Functionality in life also means developing habits and systems that support your goals and the self-image you want to cultivate. If health is important to you and you want to see yourself as a fit, energetic person, functional choices might include meal prepping on Sundays or scheduling workout sessions like you would an important meeting. These habits might not seem glamorous at first, but just like my well-organized pantry, they can become beautiful aspects of your life and they'll help support the self-image you want to develop, showcasing your commitment and devotion to your values. It's about asking, does this actually serve me? Does it make my life better in a meaningful way? Does it align with my values and the person I want to become? Sometimes the most functional choice isn't the most impressive or exciting at first glance, but it's the one that will support your long-term happiness. So when you think about prioritizing functionality in your life, you need to regularly assess your commitments and activities to make sure that they're aligning with your values and goals.

You need to create systems and routines that support your desired self-image, even if they're not always exciting initially. Also, be willing to let go of things that look good on paper but don't actually serve you well. And then finally, prioritize choices that support your mental and emotional wellbeing, not just your external image, what other people will see. What matters is what you see and how you feel. Now let's talk about interior design lesson number four, and it's one that I'm still sitting with, and that is to embrace white space. So in design, white space, or they often call it negative space, is that empty area around objects, and it's so crucial to have so that you don't have visual clutter and you allow the eye to rest. And when I first walked into the house when everything was done and there was no furniture, nothing on the walls, it was nothing but white space, and I saw myself starting to get excited about all of the things that I could put on the walls.

And I took a pause and I thought about how this applies to life, how we often just fill our lives up with so many things that we don't have the space to rest. And I want my home to be a visual representation of my self-image, but also how I want my life to feel and how I want to live my life. And so I've been very intentional about not cluttering this place up even though there is a lot of white space. And sometimes I see a wall looking at me sort of like trying to tempt me into putting something on it, and I think, no, there's something so calming about having this negative space. It's about creating mental and emotional space and avoiding this constant trap of busyness and allowing room for growth and spontaneity. It's about avoiding the trap of constantly filling every moment with an activity which can lead to a self-image built on busyness rather than true fulfillment. And so when you think about how to apply this to life, this could mean scheduling regular do nothing time on your calendar.

In fact, on my calendar, I have big blocks of time every morning blocked out. I call it focus time. And that time is for me to focus on what I'm just being called to focus on. There's no agenda. There's nothing that needs to be produced during that time. It's a time for me to read. It's a time for me to sit down with a journal and really think about my life, think about my business. Sometimes I use that time for content creation. But there's nothing special that needs to be done during this time, and that is very intentional. If I'm not mindful, those spaces in my calendar could easily be filled up with things because there are a lot of demands. There are a lot of people wanting meetings, there are a lot of projects that need to be completed, and it's very tempting to fill those spaces with things that your brain will try to actually give to you it's urgent when in fact, if you want to be a designer of your life, you have to take back controls of your schedule.

You're going to have to let some things go. You're going to have to create white space in your life. Because what I have found is that this white space leads to increased creativity, it reduces my stress, and it just creates a healthier self-image. So for you, embracing white space could also mean decluttering your life, physically, digitally, and mentally. It might involve unsubscribing from unnecessary emails, it could be you saying no to commitments that don't truly matter to you or simply sitting in silence for a few minutes each day. When you do that, what you're doing is you're creating space for what truly matters to you. And in terms of your self-image, embracing white space means being comfortable with not always having to prove yourself or fill every moment with an achievement. It's about recognizing that your worth isn't determined by constant activity or accumulation, but by who you are at the core, your essence.

So to put this lesson into practice, I encourage you to regularly schedule some unstructured time in your calendar. It could be 10 minutes a day, it could be one day a week, a time where it's negative space. And listen, that can be very uncomfortable, especially if you're so used to being busy and always having something to do. And if you equate your worth with your productivity, this is very difficult, but it's also very necessary in order to have a harmonious life. Also practicing no to commitments that don't align with your values and your priorities. Create physical spaces in your home that are intentionally minimalist or clutter-free. That is telling your brain, we don't have to fill up every space. It is okay, it is safe, and it's actually extremely beautiful to have space in our lives where we can just be. And then finally, intentionally allow for periods of rest without feeling guilty or unproductive.

We have to re-energize, we have to fill our own tanks, so to speak. So make sure you are taking care of you, that you are resting as you are pursuing your goals, as you are growing your businesses, as you are climbing the ladder, make sure that rest is a part of your plan. Remember, just as white space and design allows important elements to stand out, creating space in your life allows priorities to shine through very clearly. It gives you room to breathe, to grow, and most importantly, I think this is the most important part, it allows you to connect with your authentic self. Now let's talk about life lesson number five that I learned from interior design, and this is going to be especially for all of you perfectionists, and that is don't be afraid of making mistakes. In interior design. This might mean experimenting with bold color choices or unconventional furniture arrangements or very abstract art. Not every choice will work out, but with each attempt, you learn something valuable about your style and your preferences.

During my process, I made a couple of choices that didn't quite work out as I had envisioned, one of them being these two pieces of artwork that I purchased to go behind the chests that sit beside my fireplace. So I have two alcoves and I bought these beautiful, old French oak chests that sit inside that alcove, and then I bought this artwork. And my vision was I wanted that white space, but I wanted texture because texture is so important in design and general. And so I found online these two abstract sort of like Wabi-Sabi design pieces of art, and they were beautiful online. And they arrived, and honestly, they looked just like it was presented online. But when I put them in the chest, I realized that the tone of white was just way off and it was not achieving the desired effect that I wanted. And that's okay. That is okay. I had a vision, it didn't quite work out the way I wanted it to. And the truth is they are both beautiful pieces of art, just the tone of white is not working with the white of the wall.

But I would've never known that had I not made that mistake. Now it's helped me to hone my preference, it's helped me to re-visualize that area, and I'm okay with those pieces for now. They're okay. Of course I'm going to probably replace them in the near future, but I'm all about the willingness to make mistakes because many times the way that we refine and find our way to our authentic style and to our truest self-expression is we have to try things on. We have to see how they feel. It's hard sometimes to do that intellectually. Now, you can somewhat. Had it been a place where I could actually go and see if I could borrow the artwork and bring it in, I could have seen very clearly it wasn't going to work out, but that wasn't one of those situations. And so you have to be willing to make mistakes in design and in life. This principle encourages us to view mistakes not as failures, but always as learning opportunities. Every wrong decision gives you information that can guide future choices and help you refine your true desires, your authentic self-image.

For instance, maybe you took a job that turns out to be a poor fit. Instead of seeing that as a failure and letting it negatively impact your self-image, view it as valuable data about what you don't want in your career. One of the things that I've seen with members of the School of self-image is that the more willing they are to maybe get it wrong or to make a mistake, the faster they grow and the faster they get back to their truth. I've seen women try new hobbies only to find out, "You know what? I don't really like that." But the only way for them to know was to actually go out and do it, to experiment and to experience it. But every time I see them do this, they figure out, what was it about that that I didn't like? And they use that as beautiful data to inform how they move forward. So instead of giving up and labeling yourself as untalented or not capable, you can see these things as a chance to practice perseverance and really hone in on what you really really want.

What I know to be true in this house as well as in life is if I would have let my fear of making mistakes lead my choices or my lack thereof, I wouldn't be sitting in this house right now. I would've slowed this process completely to a halt. I would've spent a lot of time second guessing myself, spending hours and hours and hours researching only to find myself indecisive. And I've seen over and over the more willing you are to make mistakes. And I'm not talking about just un-calculated risk, but really just calculated risk. The more willing you are to take those risks and the willingness to make a mistake, the faster you'll get to where you want to go. So when you put this into practice, it means viewing setbacks as opportunities for growth and learning and being willing to try new things even if you're not sure you're going to be good at them.

And also be careful on how you frame failures. You can frame them as a reason why you should quit and give up, or you can frame them as valuable experiences that contribute to your personal growth. Just as homes evolve over time through trial and error, so does our self-image. Every mistake is an opportunity to learn and grow and to become more authentically yourself. So as we wrap up this episode, I want you to remember that designing your life and shaping your self image, just like designing a home, is an ongoing process. As long as I'm in this home, I will be bringing things in, letting things go, switching up some things, and that's how it is in life. And these principles that I've talked about today, embracing contrast, creating focal points, prioritizing functionality, embracing white space, and not fearing mistakes. They're all tools in your life design toolkit. Use them to create a life and self-image that not only looks good on the surface, but feels deeply gratifying and authentically you.

Your life can be a beautiful, functional expression of your true self. You really are the interior designer of your life and your self-image. Think about that, interior, inside of you, and how you design your inner self is then expressed in the world. That's why I love coaching on the external because it's a feedback loop. Our inner and outer worlds are so connected, and so when you begin to design your interior life on purpose, it is going to impact how you show up and the choices you make in the outer world. And as you make those choices, it reflects back to you who you are and who you are becoming. So I want you to think about how you can apply these lessons to your life. Think about what aspects of your self-image might need a little redesign. And remember, small changes make a big difference over time. Have a beautiful, beautiful week, my friends, and I'll see you on the next episode. Cheers.

Hey, before you go, I want to ask you something. Do you ever feel like your style choices don't quite reflect who you truly are on the inside? If so, I would love to invite you to take the Soul Style quiz to help you align your fashion choices with your values and your personality and ultimately your soul. Are you curious what your soul style might be? Well, all you need to do is head over to schoolofselfimage.com forward slash style quiz and get ready to discover a look that is uniquely and authentically you.

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Can I share something personal with you? Last year was... rough.

I felt completely off-kilter, like I’d lost my way. There were so many tears, so much frustration, and moments of raw honesty with myself that were far from easy.

I realized I had strayed from my soul’s path. The woman I’d become didn’t align with the woman I knew I was at my core. It was a hard pill to swallow, but it was also the wake-up call I needed.

So I made some changes. Big ones. Scary ones. The kind of changes that make you question everything you thought you knew about yourself.

It wasn’t pretty – think less “graceful butterfly emerging from a chrysalis” and more “messy caterpillar goo.”

But you know what? I’m emerging onto the other side. And I’ve got to tell you – I’m feeling more excited and joyful than ever.

The fog has lifted, and I can see my path clearly again. It’s like I’ve rediscovered parts of myself I’d forgotten existed.

I’m sharing this because these are the conversations we need to have. And I want you to know: if you’re in that messy, uncomfortable place of evolution right now, hang in there.

It’s not easy, but it’s so worth it. It’s also a very normal part of life, so nothing has gone wrong.

And if you’re feeling the stirrings of change, don’t ignore them. Your soul might be trying to guide you back to your true path.

Here’s to becoming who we’re meant to be – messy parts and all,

P.S. Speaking of evolution, I’m thrilled to announce a brand-new Instagram account I’m launching TODAY for the School of Self-Image. It’s just one of the exciting changes I’ve been working on within my business.

Follow us @schoolofselfimageto join our incredible community of women who are becoming their most authentic selves. And be sure to turn on your notifications – I’m going live at 5PM ET with a big announcement you won’t want to miss.

I can’t wait to connect with you there.

The Power of Imperfect ActionThe secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small, manageable tasks and starting on the first one.

~ Mark Twain

Taking the first step towards change can be daunting, but remember, progress beats perfection. Each small action contributes to your personal evolution, no matter how imperfect it may seem. Embrace the journey, flaws and all!

This week, choose one small action towards a goal you’ve been postponing. It could be as simple as writing the first sentence of that book you’ve always wanted to write or decluttering one drawer in your home.

Don’t aim for perfection – just take that first step. Notice how accomplishing this small task makes you feel, and use that momentum to fuel your next action.

The Soul Style Quiz: A Step in Your Style EvolutionUncover your unique style persona with our brand-new Soul Style Quiz! This free, insightful tool is designed to reveal the essence of your personal style - a reflection of who you are right now.

Understanding your authentic style is a powerful step in personal growth. This quiz will guide you towards a wardrobe that truly reflects your current self while also illuminating potential paths for style evolution. It’s about creating a style that’s a true expression of you - today and tomorrow.

Take the FREE QuizThe Courage (and Reality) of BecomingThis week’s podcast tackles the exhilarating (and sometimes terrifying) process of personal evolution. We’ll unpack Martha Beck’s Change Cycle, offering insights and practical tools for each transformative stage. From navigating the “person soup” of uncertainty to spreading your newly formed wings, we’ve got you covered.

Expect actionable strategies to fuel your metamorphosis, conquer fear, and bounce back from setbacks. Whether you’re contemplating change or in the thick of it, this episode will ignite your courage to embrace the messy, beautiful art of becoming your truest self.

Listen to The Podcast// TheEDIT

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Listen to the Full Episode:Quality Over Quantity: The Key to an Elegant Closet

An elegant closet transcends mere clothing and accessories; it is about curating a selection that truly embodies your authentic style, meets your lifestyle needs, and brings you joy every time you open its doors. Tonya Leigh stresses the significance of crafting a closet that effortlessly reflects who you are. This involves meticulously choosing pieces that resonate with your personal style and values.

When curating an elegant closet, it is crucial to consider not only the visual appeal of the items but also their practicality in meeting your daily lifestyle demands. The clothes and accessories in your closet should serve a purpose and align with the activities and occasions you typically engage in. By ensuring that your wardrobe is tailored to your lifestyle, you can feel confident and comfortable in your outfits, knowing that they cater to your needs.

Get inspired to turn your closet into a personal sanctuary that truly reflects who you are.

Episode Details:00:44 - Tonya's New Home and Office

01:37 - Designing an Elegant Closet

03:03 - Four Essentials of an Elegant Closet

04:19 - Emotional Benefits of an Elegant Closet

04:30 - Inspiration from a French Friend

05:33 - Misconceptions About Elegance

05:55 - Soul Style Quiz

07:00 - Solving the "Nothing to Wear" Problem

07:21 - Easier Packing for Trips

08:25 - Investing in Timeless Pieces

10:22 - Challenge: Choosing Quality Pieces

16:02 - Personal Story: High Heels vs. Sneakers

20:09 - Organizational Tools and Tips

26:52 - Final Thoughts on Closet Curation

Useful Resources:* Soul Style Quiz: http://schoolofselfimage.com/stylequiz * Join Now: https://schoolofselfimage.com/join/ * FREE download: https://schoolofselfimage.com/self-image-manifesto/ * Sign up for the weekly Edit: https://schoolofselfimage.com/edit/ * Follow School of Self-Image on IG: @schoolofselfimage

Connect with Master Life Coach Tonya Leigh: Website: https://schoolofselfimage.com * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/schoolofselfimage * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TonyaLeighOfficial * TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thetonyaleigh * YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@schoolofselfimageOfficial DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:*Have you ever stood in front of your closet, surrounded by clothes but felt like you had absolutely nothing to wear? If so, you are not alone. Today we are going to explore the concept of an elegant closet, this curated space that not only looks beautiful, but also simplifies your life and boosts your confidence. Are you ready to transform your closet from a source of stress into a personal sanctuary that truly reflects who you are? If so, let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach Tonya Lee.

Hello, my beautiful friends. Welcome back to another episode of the School of Self-Image podcast. I am so delighted that I am recording this in my home, in my new office, and there are no people around. It has been quite the journey, you all. We moved in almost two weeks ago, and they still were not complete with the house. And so it seems as if I've had people in my house every single day doing these little things. And trying to work and record podcasts has been quite the challenge. But today has felt like a normal day of me getting back to work and doing it in a place that I've been planning for almost two years. It feels so good to finally be home.

Part of how I spent last week was in my closet. When I was designing this house, I knew that I wanted a closet that truly reflected me. And it's interesting, because Fonz went down the street the other day to another house that is being built and he was telling me about their closet, and he was like, "Oh my God, it's so huge." I thought my closet was big, but it turns out there are much bigger closets out there. But this closet is a perfect size for me. If it does not fit into this closet, it does not belong in my life.

When I was designing my closet, what I wanted was an elegant closet. And it turns out elegance isn't big. It's not massive. It's not over the top. It's about curating a closet that allows the beautiful expression of you. When I think about an elegant closet, it is a curated collection of clothing and accessories that effortlessly reflect your true style. It meets your lifestyle needs and it brings you joy every time you open the door. It is not about having the most expensive items or following every trend. It's about creating this harmonious space that simplifies your life and elevates your self-image.

And so today in this episode, I want to share with you what I consider to be the four essentials of an elegant closet. Think of it this way. An elegant closet is like a well-written sentence. It contains everything you need, nothing you don't, and expresses who you are beautifully.

Now, why should you strive for an elegant closet? Well, let me tell you. I think the payoff is huge, both financially and emotionally. Financially, an elegant closet actually saves you money in the long run. When you have a well-curated wardrobe, you're less likely to make impulse purchases or buy items that you'll never wear. You will shop with intention, investing in quality pieces that last longer and actually serve you better. For example, instead of buying five cheap sweaters that pill after a few wears, you might invest in one high quality cashmere sweater that lasts you for years. Over time, this approach actually reduces your clothing expenses. And then emotionally, the benefits I think are even greater. Imagine starting each day feeling confident and put together, rather than stressed and overwhelmed by all of the choices. An elegant closet eliminates decision fatigue, it boosts your self-esteem, and it sets this positive tone for your day.

I remember visiting a French friend for the first time. I went to her house. And to me, she was the epitome of that effortless chic look. And quite honestly, I was expecting to see a big closet with a lot of choices, but what I found was an armoire filled with very curated quality pieces that she just knew how to mix and match and make the most of what she had. She had a lot of attention to details. She had great accessories, she had some beautiful bags, but she didn't have a lot of things.

And so I came home on this mission. I was like, "I want to live my life more in this way," because I remember buying a lot of purses that were low quality and the handle would be falling off after a season. And so I had a lot of stuff, but I never had that put together feeling. So I came home with a burning desire to have an elegant closet. And I just want to be clear. I think sometimes when I say elegant anything, that maybe your mind goes to ... Oh, she must be talking about a little black dress and some pearls and some heels. No. Remember, an elegant closet is fit for you and whatever your style is.

And by the way, if you don't know your style, have you taken the soul style quiz yet? If not, what in the world? It is so good. We've had so many women reach out and say, "This quiz really nailed who I am, and gave me some really important tools and tips on how to express that through my clothes." So if you haven't taken the quiz yet, go to schoolofselfimage.com/stylequiz. All together. Schoolofselfimage.com/stylequiz.

But back to what I was saying. An elegant closet isn't the style of the clothes in your closet. It's really about you intentionally choosing pieces that fit you and your lifestyle and what you value, and making sure that everything that hangs in your closet is something that you love and you actually wear and use.

And this was something I deeply, deeply wanted for myself. I was so tired of having a closet full of clothes with nothing to wear. Y'all know what I'm talking about. You're like, "I should be able to put together an outfit with what I have, but it just feels so hard to me." Well, turns out having an elegant closet solves for that problem. And let me tell you, it feels so good to be able to walk into your closet and get dressed for the day with confidence and loving what you have. Not to mention how much easier it is to pack for a trip. Packing for a trip used to be a project for me. And now, I seriously can do it in no time because of an elegant closet.

So let's explore the four essentials that will help you create this elegant space in your own home. The first essential of an elegant closet is to choose quality over quantity. Now, I know what you might be thinking. But Tonya, I love having options. And trust me, I get it. I used to be the queen of ... But it was on sale purchases. But here's the truth bomb. Having a closet bursting with clothes doesn't mean you have more options. It also means you just have more confusion. Think about it. How many times have you stood in front of your packed closet feeling overwhelmed and unsure of what to wear? It's because when we prioritize quantity, we often compromise on quality, both in terms of the clothes themselves and how they make us feel.

So what does it look like to choose quality? Well, it means investing in well-made, timeless pieces that you absolutely love that will last you maybe decades. I have clothes in my closet that I've had for two decades that still look as good today as they did the day I bought them. It's about you choosing items that make you feel like the very best version of yourself every time you put them on. They fit your style, they fit your lifestyle, they really embody who you are and what you value.

And here's where fit comes in, because it's crucial that when we talk about quality, we also talk about the fit of clothing. A well-fitting garment can make you look and feel like a million bucks, even if it didn't cost nearly that much. For example, I have this simple black blazer. It is not the most expensive item in my closet, but it fits me perfectly. The shoulders sit just right, the waist nips in at the perfect spot, and the length is spot on for my height. Every time I wear it, I feel polished and confident.

On the flip side, however, I had this designer dress that I got on sale. And I thought I was going to love it, but turns out the fit was all wrong for me. It never fit quite right. Can you relate? I'm sure you have some of those in your closet too, but I kept it because of the price. Even though I did get it on sale, it was still a significant investment. But I never felt great wearing it. That's not quality, regardless of the price tag. So when you're choosing quality pieces, always prioritize fit. If necessary, you may need to budget for alterations. A $50 dress that fits you perfectly will serve you far better than a $500 dress that doesn't quite work.

So here's a challenge for you. Next time you're about to buy something, ask yourself, "Do I love this? Does it fit me well? Does it fit my style? Or am I just trying to fill a void?" Because let me tell you, no amount of cheap thrills can fill the space that's meant for true quality pieces that resonate with your soul.

The second essential of an elegant closet is versatility. This is the one that I feel like I have finally mastered, and it has been such a game-changer. This is where the magic happens. When you have a versatile wardrobe, you suddenly unlock the secret to having something to wear for every occasion without needing a closet the size of a small country. Versatility is about choosing pieces that can be mixed and matched to create multiple outfits.

This is something that we spent a lot of time on in the Style Experience. And women are always so amazed at how they can create sometimes 30, 40 outfits with just a few pieces of clothing, and I show them exactly how to do it. It's the art of turning that one amazing blazer into a powerful outfit for work, a chic ensemble for dinner, and a cool casual look for weekend brunch.

I like to think of my pieces in my closet as a family, and they all need to get along in order for us to do well. And so when I'm shopping now, I always think about my closet as a whole and where this piece fits. Occasionally, I will buy that one-off crazy aunt who ... She's the life of the party but she doesn't quite fit in with everybody else. But those pieces are very, very rare. The majority of the time, I want to purchase pieces that can pair with so many things that are already hanging there. And when I'm thinking about it, I'm always thinking about the fit. I'm always thinking about the colors. If you'll look in my closet now, you will probably notice a palette of colors that work well together. And this is how I've been able to master the art of packing as well. When I pack for a trip, I can get a lot of looks out of a few things because they all work well together. They're very versatile.

But here's the key. Versatility does not mean boring. It doesn't mean having a closet full of black and white basics. It means thoughtfully selecting pieces that complement each other and can be styled in various ways. Let me give you some examples of versatility in action. Take a classic white button-down shirt. You can wear it with tailored trousers for a business meeting. You can tuck it into a skirt for a dinner date, or throw it over your swimsuit as a beach cover-up. And then you add in beautiful accessories. You can take that one shirt and create so many different looks with it. Or consider a well-fitted pair of jeans. You can dress them up with heels and a blazer for a night out or keep it casual with some sneakers and a T-shirt for running errands. The possibilities are endless.

One of my favorite versatile pieces is a silk scarf. I can wear it around my neck, I can tie it to my handbag for a pop of color, I can use it in my hair. I even use scarves as tops and skirts. It's one of my favorite pieces to pack for vacations, especially in the summer. I can tie it over my bathing suit and wear it like a sarong. I can create a shirt out of it. I can do so many things with that one piece of material. In fact, here's a little fun fact. One of my favorite pieces in my home right now is I've turned one of my favorite scarves into a piece of art. It's hanging in my dining room. It is absolutely beautiful. You can do so much with a scarf. It's one item with so many uses. And the beauty of a versatile wardrobe is that it not only simplifies your life, but it also encourages creativity. It's like having your own personal styling playground right in your closet.

Now let's talk about essential number three of an elegant closet, and that is style alignment. This is where things get really fun, because an elegant closet isn't just about looking good. It's about feeling good, feeling like you. Personal style alignment means ensuring that each piece in your closet is a true reflection of your authentic self. It's about curating a wardrobe that aligns with your personal values, your personal goals, your lifestyle, and the image that you want to project not only to the world, but back to yourself.

This is why I love using style as one of the elements of transforming your self-image. One of the ways that I literally changed how I saw myself was to change what I saw in the mirror, to confirm back to myself who I wanted to be and who we really want to be deep down, I think, is who we really are. It's getting back to yourself. Personal style alignment isn't about following trends or trying to fit into someone else's idea of style. This is about tuning into what makes you feel confident, comfortable, and fabulous.

Here's an example. I love the look of high heels. And for years, I kept buying them because I thought they were a must-have for an elegant wardrobe. But the truth is I didn't wear them a lot because they weren't comfortable for my lifestyle. I was always running around, and heels just weren't practical. Now, I still love a beautiful pair of heels, and I still have my little coveted collection. And I wear them occasionally, but the majority of my shoes need to fit not only my style, but also my lifestyle. I want to have pieces that work for me. I want to own things that I'm actually going to use. And so I had to reevaluate my relationship with heels. I had to discover the ones that actually worked and were comfortable instead of trying to force myself into shoes that hurt.

But it also caused me to explore and to experiment with other footwear that not only fit my style, but also worked in my everyday life. And I discovered that I actually love sneakers. I think sneakers are so fun, and there are so many different styles of sneakers, and you can dress them in so many fun ways, and they feel good on my feet. That to me, is an elegant closet. It's something that feels good on you, makes you feel like a million bucks, and works for your life. It is something that you can use on a regular basis instead of stocking your closet with things that you can only wear every once in a while. And yes, again, I still have some heels that I love, but the ones that I own now are comfortable. They work for me.

So here's a little exercise for you. Take a moment to think about the clothes that you feel most you in. What do they have in common? Is it a certain color, a particular cut, or maybe a specific fabric or texture? That is your personal style speaking to you. Style alignment isn't about conforming to some external standard of elegance. It's about finding what makes you feel like the best version of yourself. And when your closet is aligned with your personal style, getting dressed becomes a joy, not a chore. You're not just putting on clothes, you are expressing your true self. And let me tell you, there is nothing more elegant than authenticity.

Now, for our final essential number four of an elegant closet, we are talking organization and maintenance, because even the most carefully curated wardrobe can turn into a mess if it's not properly cared for. Organization isn't just about making your clothes look pretty in the closet, although that is a nice bonus, I'll have to admit. It's really about creating a system that allows you to see and appreciate everything you own. It's about treating your clothes with respect and preserving their elegance. This may mean investing in good hangers or organizing by color or occasion or even doing a seasonal rotation. You have to find a system that works for you and stick to it.

This is an area that I will admit have struggled the most in my style journey, and I've tried a lot of different things. And the key is finding what works for you. Finding the system that supports how you think, how you live, and then committing to that system. And just know that when you do this and you open your closet and everything is in its place, it totally changes your tone for the day. It allows you to feel more confident and more comfortable in your clothing decisions.

But I'm going to go ahead and admit that this has been probably the hardest part of my style journey, staying organized with my clothing. And it was the piece that when I finally got it, it changed everything. I have tried so many different things. I've tried having a capsule collection. I've tried organizing by color. I've tried organizing by season. And I have finally found what works for me.

And if you're in the Style Experience, I will share everything with you. I will bring you behind the scenes in my closet and show you the nuts and bolts of how I stay organized. And by the way, the Style Experience is returning this fall. We are going to have so much fun. I'm going to take you behind the scenes. We are going to identify your personal style. I'm going to show you all of the tricks of styling outfits and really creating an elegant closet. That is the goal of the Style Experience. So stay tuned. I will be sharing more about that later.

But when it comes to creating an elegant closet, there is one thing that I did early on. I don't do it any longer because I don't feel the need to because I understand my clothes now, and I have streamlined what's in my closet and I wear what I own. But I find that this is a useful organizational tool when you're first starting your style journey for you to get to know your clothes again. And that is to organize your closet in the beginning of the season in a way that allows you to see what you're wearing and what you're not.

And the way I would do this is that I would turn all of my clothing on the hanger one way at the beginning of a season. And as I would wear it and then wash it, I would return it to the closet with the hanger hanging the opposite direction. That way, at the end of the season, I could see what were the pieces that I wore and what were the pieces that never got any love. Those were the pieces that I knew I needed to let go of, either resell or to donate. And it's a really great thing for you to do if you feel completely overwhelmed by what's in your closet. You don't really know what you should keep. You don't understand what you're wearing a lot of. Do this. I'm telling you, it is a game changer.

The other thing that I am a huge fan of and I still do to this day is I document my outfits. I like to take a mirror selfie, just for me, to really look at my outfits because when you're looking at a picture, you can see more clearly what works and what doesn't work. Is it the proportion? Is it the style? Is it the color? And so I love to use that as a tool to learn about style, but I also love to document the outfits I love. I have an album on my phone for those outfits. The outfits that I put together that I just feel amazing in, because sometimes we forget. We forget that great outfit that we wore on date night a year ago. And when we're feeling uninspired, it's such a great tool to be able to pull out this album and look for those outfits that you can recreate.

And it's especially useful when you're packing and you're trying to come up with what you're going to bring along on your trip to the Caribbean. Well, if you've documented your great summer outfits in the past, you can just pull out this album and be like, "Oh, that's the outfit." And you can go reach for it and grab it in your closet and pack it for your incredible trip.

I also love photo journaling of outfits, because you can begin to identify the pieces that are the workhorses in your wardrobe. And you'll notice them because you'll find that they're showing up in multiple outfits. And so with this insight, you can decide what you want to keep, what you want to donate, or especially what you want to look for when you're shopping. If you notice that you are wearing this one particular white skirt, for example, it's showing up a lot. You love the style of it, you love the versatility of it. Maybe when you're shopping next, you want to add a different color of that same style into your wardrobe. And so that is one of the big benefits of outfit journaling. And then finally, the part I love the most about journaling your outfits is that it becomes this beautiful record of your personal style evolution. For me, it's amazing to look back and see how my style has grown and changed. It's sacred. It represents not only my style journey, but my journey as a woman.

These are just two tools that have helped me to stay organized, because when you are aware of what you own and you're constantly editing your closet, you're going to find that elegance is a result. And FYI, I love to do a seasonal closet edit. Every season, I love to go through and pull out what no longer fits, what no longer is getting the TLC that it deserves, and then I can really strategically think about what pieces that I want to bring in for that season the next year.

Now, let's talk about maintenance. This is a very important part of an elegant closet because taking care of your clothes, washing them properly, mending them when needed, getting alterations, polishing your shoes, these are all acts of self-care. They're ways of saying, "I value myself and I value the things that I've chosen to represent me." As for maintenance, it's worth learning how to properly care for your clothes. For instance, I have a cashmere sweater that's over a decade old, and it still looks great because I've learned how to wash and store it correctly. A little care goes a long way in extending the life of your garments.

So there you have it, my friends, the four essentials of an elegant closet. Quality over quantity, versatility, style alignment, and organization and maintenance. And I want you to remember, creating an elegant closet isn't about perfection. It's about intention, and it's ongoing. It's about creating a space that brings you joy and confidence every single day. So as you embark on this journey of closet curation, be gentle with yourself. You don't have to be perfect. It's okay to make mistakes. I make them all of the time. It's okay to evolve. Your style, like you, is a beautiful work in progress.

And here's a final thought I want to leave you with. Your closet is more than just a storage space. It is a daily opportunity to honor yourself, to express yourself, and to present your best self to the world. And most importantly, to present your best self to you. So make it count. And most importantly, make it fun. Thank you all for being with me today for the four essentials of an elegant closet. And hey, listen, if you haven't taken the Soul Style quiz, go do it. It is so much fun. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/soulstyle. And until next time, here's to elegance, simplicity, and closets that make us all smile. Have a beautiful week, my friends, and I will see you on the next episode. Cheers.

Before we part ways, I have an exciting invitation for you. If you have been desiring to elevate your style but find yourself stuck, unsure, or overwhelmed, I've created something very special just for you. Join me for a private 12-week podcast series called Why Don't You, where we're going to dive deep into personal style, confidence, and self-expression. It is an intimate journey designed for the discerning woman who knows she's capable of more but needs that extra guidance and inspiration. And just so you know, this isn't about fleeting trends or rules. It's about discovering and embracing your unique style story. So to access this private series, all you need to do is go to schoolofselfimage.com/why and secure your spot. And remember, true style is timeless, and it starts with you. Why don't you? Join us and unveil the most stylish version of yourself.

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Listen to the Full Episode:The Art of Becoming: Navigating Life's Transformations

Embracing the process of becoming involves shedding old identities, beliefs, and habits to align with one's true self. As discussed in the podcast episode, the journey of becoming is likened to a metamorphosis, much like a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly. This transformation requires individuals to let go of who they have been to become who they truly are or aspire to be.

Host, Tonya Leigh, shares her personal experiences of going through various stages of becoming, including facing challenges, reevaluating her identity, and making intentional changes to align with her true nature. She emphasizes the importance of letting go of comfortable ways of being, confronting difficult truths about oneself, and being willing to evolve into a new version.

Join Tonya as she delves into the process of shedding old identities and embracing new versions of ourselves.

Episode Details:02:32 The Art of Becoming

05:13 Letting Go of Identities and Beliefs

10:31 The Butterfly Metamorphosis Analogy

11:26 Martha Beck's Change Cycle

16:17 Cocooning Yourself with Self-Care

19:30 Square One Mantra

23:34 Reimagining and Nourishing Your Soul

28:20 Embracing Failure and Obstacles

32:05 The Promised Land

36:45 Embracing Constant Change

Useful Resources:* FREE Masterclass:https://schoolofselfimage.com/powerfully-ever-after/ * FREE Download: https://schoolofselfimage.com/self-image-manifesto/ * Sign up for the weekly Edit: https://schoolofselfimage.com/edit/

Connect with Master Life Coach Tonya Leigh: Website: https://schoolofselfimage.com * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/schoolofselfimage/ * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TonyaLeighOfficial * TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thetonyaleigh * YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TonyaLeighOfficial DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:*Have you ever felt like you're on the brink of a major life change, or maybe you've been thrust into one and you may be equally excited and terrified of what lies ahead? Well, just like a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly, we as humans go through our own metamorphosis, which requires us to shed old identities and grow into new versions of ourselves. So today, we're going to explore this journey of becoming. So spread your wings and let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello my beautiful friends. Welcome back to the podcast. I am in it right now, and I know some of you, as soon as I say that you understand what that means, but let me give you a little context because it actually inspired today's episode. I am juggling a lot of things right now. In fact, I'm living out of a suitcase in a hotel. At the same time, I got word last week that my dad had fallen again. They took him to the hospital. He's been in the intensive care unit, and so I was up there for a few days. I came back because I'm supposed to be moving into my house, but my house isn't complete, and so a lot going on. Not to mention I'm in the process of rebranding, and I say rebranding, it's up-branding.

It's the next evolution of me and the School of Self-image. And along with that, it's a whole process and there's so many different moving pieces. And there was a moment, a couple of days ago when I was at my parents' house, where I just surrendered and I said, "I'm just going to let go and focus on what's right in front of me in this moment." And also, I know deep down that what is happening in my life right now is really helping me expand into that next version of myself. I call this process the art of becoming. And when I say that, it's the process of growth and evolution. In fact, if you look up the definition of becoming it is the process of coming to be something or of passing into a state. So new states of being, and what I've come to understand, because I've had so many evolutions and so many of you have been along on this journey with me for over a decade. Some of you have been with me since the very beginning.

Can you all believe it's been over 15 years since I started doing this work? But you all have seen so many different states of me, so many different evolutions, and I'm in the middle of another one. And it's about shedding old identities, beliefs, and habits to make way for new ones that align more closely with who you truly are or who you aspire to be. And I know for me that the process of becoming has been so much about letting go, of shedding, of really getting back to my true nature. It's been a journey of coming home to myself. And I think about a quote that a dear friend and a member of the School of Self-Image sent me on Instagram the other day, by Edna O'Brien. And she said, "In spite of it all, there used to be inside of me this river, an expectation for something marvelous. When did I lose it? When did it go? I want before I die to be myself again?"

God, that is such a beautiful quote. And what I've come to understand is this journey of life that we're all on together is that we go out and we experience the contrasts. We try something new, we see how it fits, and hopefully if it doesn't fit, you will let it go. You won't keep moving in a direction that doesn't serve you. And so I've talked openly about this in previous podcasts, but over the last three, four years, I've been doing a lot of that experimenting, and it's so rewarding and beautiful to, number one, recognize I had the courage to do that, but also to have a self-awareness of knowing what fits my unique soul, what feels true for me. And so this next evolution of becoming is really about me letting go of identities, of habits, of beliefs that don't serve the vision that I have for myself and my life.

Now, here's the thing about becoming. Sometimes it's a conscious choice that we make intentionally. We decide we want to change, we want to grow, we want to be different. Maybe you've decided to switch careers, to prioritize your health or to work on your relationships. That is intentional becoming. But oftentimes we find ourselves in unintentional becoming. We are thrust into a life circumstance that we didn't ask for. Maybe it's a sudden job loss, or a health crisis, or the end of a relationship, and these unexpected events can force us into a process of change and growth, whether we feel ready for it or not. A lot of the members that come into the School of Self-image have found themselves in these unintentional becoming states, where they have encountered something that they didn't plan for, that they didn't expect. And the work that we do in the membership is to support their process of becoming so that they can handle it, so that they can overcome it, so that they can get to the other side of it in a better place than had they tried to navigate that without ever changing.

But one thing that I know for sure is life will always hand you opportunities to evolve and expand. The question is, will you answer the call? Will you have the courage to become the most truest, the most vibrant, the most strong, the most, fill in the blank, of whoever you want to be? Are you willing to let go of who you've been to become who you truly are? Because that's what I'm most interested in. When women say to me, "But Tonya, you are just who you are." A lot of us are being versions of ourselves that we would've never chosen on purpose, and there are versions of ourselves that don't support us. Yeah, at the end of the day, we get to choose. And I think that deep desire of who you really want to be is who you truly are. It is a process of coming back home to yourself.

As Joseph Campbell once said, "We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us." This willingness to let go, to step into the mystery of life, that's where the courage comes in. I think about my life right now. It is not what I had planned, you all. I had a very clear plan of how this season of my life was going to go. I had dates in the calendar, I had project timelines. I had it all mapped out beautifully. And I'm all for planning. I am a huge believer in having a vision for your life and creating the plan that allows that vision to come to fruition, but life doesn't always go as planned, and I just trust that life is always happening for me. When life doesn't go according to my plan, I believe, this is my belief that has carried me through so many challenges, something better is on the horizon, and it may not feel like it right now.

Right now, my life feels very chaotic, but I'm trusting deep down that something is going to come from this period. Whether it's going to birth a version of me that I didn't even know existed, who knows what opportunities might come as a result of all of this. But I'm just trusting that there is a bigger plan and I'm just letting go and surrendering. Letting go, however, does not mean giving up. It just means letting go of the control, of you wanting it to be a certain way. I'm still showing up. I am still showing up for meetings. I'm still showing up and doing my work. I'm trying to be present for my parents. I'm still showing up in life. I'm just relinquishing the control of how I think it should go and what it should look like.

So in this episode, I want to talk openly about the reality and the courage of becoming. So often, we only see the after. We don't see everything that had to take place to create the after, and then when we're going through it, we don't realize so many other people have gone through it. And so we feel like we're so alone, that no one can relate, and I think we need to have more conversations like this, where you understand this process. And I will tell you, understanding the process of becoming has supported me so much when I'm in a state like I'm in right now. I know nothing has gone wrong. This is just part of life. No one escapes this. Everyone, at some point, goes through this and just knowing that should offer us all some comfort when we're in it.

The art of becoming is very much like the butterfly metamorphosis. If you think about it, a butterfly's life begins as an egg, which then hatches into a caterpillar, and then this caterpillar enters into a stage where it quite literally dissolves into a soup of cells before reforming and transforming into a beautiful butterfly. And this is not just a physical transformation, but a complete reimagining of what the creature can be and do. So, much like the butterfly, we humans go through our own metamorphosis throughout our lives. Some of these changes we choose intentionally, while others are thrust upon us by life circumstances. But one thing's for sure, life will always hand us those opportunities.

So the best tool I have ever come across to understand this process is Martha Beck's Change Cycle. I trained under Martha Beck. I think she is brilliant, and this one tool changed my life. And the way she has broken it down is into four stages that, if you pay attention, you will find yourself in at all times of your life. And you might be in different stages in different areas of your life. That's usually the case for me. I'll be in one stage with my relationships, one stage with my health, one stage with my career, but I want to talk about these stages so that you have an understanding of nothing has gone wrong. Again, this is the process of being a human and the process of becoming, and I have found that understanding these stages have helped me to navigate them with more grit and more grace.

So let's talk about the first stage. She calls this stage Death and Rebirth, also the dissolving stage. This is the part of the butterfly's metamorphosis where it's literally dissolving into what she calls a person soup. And unfortunately, we're not taught to expect this. We're not taught that this is part of life, and so when it happens to us, it is extremely scary. When we're in Square One or stage one, whichever you want to call it, we feel like life is falling apart. We may sense that we're losing everyone and everything, and it feels like a death in a way. It is the demise of the person that we've been. Now, as Square One, it might actually be a happy thing that's happening, but it still is shifting your identity in a way that you're having to let go of an old part of yourself.

A great example of this is when you become a mother, when you become a parent, when you get married, maybe you get a new job that is completely different than your old job and you're having to birth a completely new identity to be able to step into this new role. So it's not always something, again, that is unintentional. Sometimes you find yourself in Square One intentionally. And what I found recently in my life, the Square Ones that I have been in are intentional, but that doesn't mean they're any less scary because you are having to confront things about yourself. You are having to let go of very comfortable ways of being, in order to step into this new identity. I found myself in Square One last year. I went through a very difficult time where I had to take a good and honest look at myself, of how I had allowed myself to get into a certain position, how I had allowed myself to be influenced in a way that didn't feel true to me. And it was all on me. It was nobody else.

It was all on me, but I had to face parts of myself that, quite honestly, they were hard to face. I didn't like what I was seeing, but that is the process of becoming. You should never ever be ashamed of that because again, no one escapes it. But the courage that it takes to have an honest conversation with yourself, to be truthful with yourself, to look at how you have justified certain things even though they didn't align with you, to be able to look at how you've held yourself back, to be able to call yourself out on things that maybe you've done, maybe things that you have said, maybe things that you have felt that were not coming from the truest part of you, that takes a lot of courage and a lot of people will never do that. Pride gets in the way, ego gets in the way, but if you want to embrace the art of becoming, you have to be willing to do that. And so that is what I did a big part of last year.

There were a lot of tears, there was a lot of frustration, there was a lot of anger, and I had to be willing to face it all in order to become the version that I am today. And I will tell you, I'm a healthier, more expansive, more loving, more confident version of myself than I've ever been. But when you're in it, it is not fun, you all. And so I love the suggestions that Martha offers when you're in Square One. First of all, instead of getting caught up in the big picture, like where am I going to be in five years or 10 years? Your brain is in such fight or flight, you can't access that. You just need to come back to today. One day at a time, and it might even be 30 minutes at a time. Instead of allowing yourself to get lost in fears about the unknown future, focus on what's happening right now. Focus on what you have right now. Find the things that bring you a little joy. Find the things that you're grateful for. Just stay as present as possible.

I love the mantra, right here, right now. When I am feeling like life is chaotic, I've been using this mantra a lot these last couple of weeks, but I'm just like, "Right here, right now. What's in front of me right now? That is what I'm going to focus on." Also, you can cocoon yourself with self-care. Last year, I spent so much time caring for myself, and it's really interesting to me, especially if there's a lot of shame involved or you're upset with yourself, this is when we often abandon self-care and that's when we need it the most. And if you think about the butterfly metamorphosis, you're literally in a cocoon during this stage and you need to cocoon yourself with self-care. And that can look different for all of us, but even just wrapping yourself in a warm blanket, making a cup of hot tea, doing whatever feels comfortable for you, supporting yourself in this moment, physically, spiritually, emotionally, and maybe it's a hour-by-hour check-in with yourself saying, "What do you need right now? What feels like love? What would be supportive of you right now?"

Just see what your body needs. See what your spirit needs and be willing to cocoon yourself with self-care. And then another thing that can be very helpful is to talk to other people who have gone through this, who are on the other side of it, who can give you hope, who can give you encouragement because they've been through it and they're on the other side of it. And knowing there are people that have gotten through similar situations can be the encouragement that you need to keep you going when you feel like you can't go any longer. One thing to remember about Square One is that the process of dissolving, it's hard, and you might find yourself fighting against it.

You might get hysterical. You might fight your feelings. You might try to recapture your former life, but these reactions only make Square One more painful. Remember, what you fight against becomes stronger. What you resist persists. So you have to be willing to dissolve. Now, if you find yourself in Square One, there is a mantra for it, and I love this mantra, and it is, I don't know what the hell is going on and that's okay. Now remember in Square One, you are coming up against old identities. You're coming up against limiting thoughts, limiting beliefs, and so you're going to be letting go, letting go, shedding. And I want you to see that process as creating the space for the new you, the new vision to emerge. And that leads me into Square Two, which is called Dreaming and Scheming.

This may feel like a beautiful rain after a long drought. This is when the clouds begin to part and you can start to see a little bit of sunshine. This is when you can begin to imagine a future that you've never imagined before. In this phase, your psyche will begin to offer you gentle nudges about what's next about your new identity. It's like the blueprint of your future self begins to whisper to you. You may be finding yourself drawn to new styles, interest or ways of living that your old self would've never considered. As Martha Beck puts it, you'll know you're beginning phase two when your mind eye starts seeing images of the life you are about to create.

Now, these visions can't be forced. They happen to you, often in unexpected ways. And for me personally, Square Two requires that I stay in touch and in tune with my body because my body is speaking to me, and I often talk about hot and cold. This is the stage where I'm very aware of what feels hot, what feels true, and very aware of what feels cold and untrue for me. So last year, when I was going through my Square One and I allowed myself to grieve, I allowed myself to be angry. I allowed myself to really take an honest look of myself. I then moved into Square Two and I started to become excited again, in a way I haven't been in a long time, and I started to pay attention to the places, the people, the things, the topics that really excited me. And interestingly enough, a lot of it was part of my past that I had gotten away from. And I don't regret any of this. Not a single part of it. I don't believe in regret. I think regret, it just slows us down.

I believe everything has happened for a reason and it happened to teach me something about myself. So in Square Two, I can tell you what it looks like for me and it's going to look different for everyone. But for me, I start imagining things not yet seen, and I began to be inspired. I began to just surround myself with things that feel aligned with me, like who I really am. So last year, I spent a lot of time creating Pinterest boards. I have so many Pinterest boards just full of images that speak to me. I also began cooking again. I started throwing dinner parties again. I had a lot of joyful hustle towards the end of the year, where I started to reimagine my business, and what I want it to be, and getting it more aligned.

I even started re-imagining my style. This is my summer of style, and I was like, "What is the next evolution of my style?" Other things that I did, I started reading fiction again, which was super fun, something I haven't done in a long time. I started journaling again. I just started doing things that nourish my soul and also having, what I call, a visionary feast, and not needing to understand how is this all going to happen? Just allowing myself to daydream, and that's what you have to do in Square Two. You need to give yourself permission to daydream, let it run wild. Try on different scenarios in your mind, this mental exploration can save you a lot of time and heartache in the real world. In this stage, I encourage you to put visual representation of what could be, what excites you.

This is also a stage where I highly encourage you to try a lot of different things. Some may be a fit, some may not, but I'm the kind of person that I often need to try on things. Just like you're trying on clothes, I need to try on different possibilities to see how they fit, and that can be a mental thing. You can just imagine yourself in this role, with this person, in this kind of life, or you can actually put yourself in those situations. If you, for example, if you're like, "I wonder what kind of home I want to live in." I've done this personally, I will go on home tours, and go in the house, and see how it fits, how it feels. And so Square Two is this fun period of just dreaming and scheming of what your life can be. The mantra for Square Two is, there are no rules and that's okay.

At a certain point, when you are in Square Two, you are going to have this nudge, this desire to actually start taking action. And that's when you move into Square Three, which is known as the Hero's Saga. Also, you can call this square reforming. In Square Three, you are going to stop fantasizing and you're going to start taking action. I find sometimes it's hard to move people out of Square Two to Square Three, because Square Three is when you start putting it all on the line. It's where the risk comes in. It's where the exposure starts. It's where you are facing failing, and so a lot of people love hanging out in Square Two. This is where they feel the safest, the most comfortable, but to get to Square Four, you have to go through Square Three. You have to go through the Hero's Saga to get to Square Four, which we're going to talk about in a moment. And this is where the rubber meets the road, or maybe where the butterfly starts to test her wings.

You're going to feel compelled to take action, to implement your dreams in the real world. So you might start submitting your artwork to galleries, or finally ask your friend to set you up on that date you've been dreaming about. You might get on Bumble, you may put in applications, you may decide to sell your house. But here's the kicker, and this is the thing that we don't want to face, it is not going to probably go perfectly. You're most likely going to fail. You're going to experience what I call the messy middle. It's the part between the before and the after, and that is normal. When I think about where I am right now in my life, I am in Square Three in different parts of my life, mostly my business.

I'm taking a lot of action. I've brought on a new team. We have done some things that haven't worked. We just put out the private, Why Don't You Podcast, and we had issues with it. And we had planned so well, and we still had issues with the private podcast, which by the way, if you have not joined the Why Don't You Podcast, what in the world? Go to schoolofselfimage.com/why and join us for this fun series. I think we have the issues fixed now, but you're going to have unexpected things come up. For example, I had my entire summer planned out. I knew when we were going to be in the house, and I had set up my entire content calendar around that. I had scheduled all of my coaching calls, and then my dad gets sick. And so I'm having to shuffle things, and rearrange things, and improvise, and that is part of Square Three.

You're going to fail. Things are not going to go as planned, and that's okay. In fact, the mantra for Square Three is, this is much worse than I expected and that's okay. I think we buy into this fantasy that things are supposed to be easy. And while I do think we can make things easier, and I do believe in ease, often that comes from us not expecting it to be easy. Hear me out here. I think one of the ways that I create ease in my life is that I don't expect it to be easy. And so when I'm up against hard things and they're challenging, I'm like, "Yeah, this is supposed to be happening." And so I'm not resisting what is, I think resisting what is, is what makes things so much harder. What if you train yourself to see these obstacles as something to move towards, not away from?

I think about Ryan Holiday's book, The Obstacle is the Way. I think a lot of people think that when things go wrong, it's a sign that it just wasn't meant to be. And I will tell you, if I thought that way, I wouldn't be where I am in my life right now because I've had a lot of things not go the way I had planned, but I just see the obstacle as the direction that I need to move in. That obstacle, here's the way I see it, that obstacle is there to birth the next version of me. That obstacle is there to grow me, not to back away from, not to run from, but to run towards. So in Square Three, it's very important that you are willing for things to go wrong and for you to train your brain to know that is part of Square Three, that is part of the Hero's Saga.

If you watch any film, you will see that this is the progression of the character. It's never the character had a dream and he perfectly executes the dream. Never. The saga is all of the obstacles that this character has to go through to get them to Square Four, which we're going to talk about in a moment. So when you're in Square Three and things aren't going well, it's very important that you have the tools to navigate it, and that's why I love the School of Self-Image membership, because that's what we provide. Learning how to manage your mind, learning how to develop courage, learning how to step into new identities that support you, that is the work that must be done in Square Three. You also have to be willing to start over.

When your plan fails, you'll most likely return to Square One where you're feeling scared, lost, confused. And the way I see that is going back to Square One is an opportunity to release, to let go of the limiting beliefs, to let go of the identities, to let go of the self-image that's holding you back. And then you revisit Square One or Square Two, and you remember your dreams, your vision for your life and you may want to adjust it a little bit to include more of your truths that you've learned through your experimentation, but you have to be persistent. You have to keep showing up, taking the action, going through the Hero's Saga. And when you do, you'll eventually end up in Square Four, also known as The Promised Land.

This is the square where you get to enjoy the fruits of your labor, to savor this new identity and the life that you've created. In so many areas of my life, I am in Square Four. In my relationships, I feel like I am in a Square Four. I'm so grateful for my man, for my family, for my friends. I have the most incredible community around me, and I just enjoy them. I just relish in the fruits of the labor of who I've had to become to attract these kinds of people into my life. With my health, I feel like I'm in Square Four. Now, in Square Four, you're always maintaining and tweaking, but I feel healthier than I have felt in a long time. And trust me, I've been through Square One, Two, and Three with my health, but I feel like I'm in The Promised Land right now. I just feel good.

Now, that doesn't mean when you get to The Promised Land that you don't do any more work. You have to maintain, and again, you're going to have to refine and tweak some things, but I feel like I'm in a Square Four with my health. When it comes to my business, it's really interesting. I was thinking before I started recording this, I don't know that I've ever felt like I've been in a Square Four in my business, and I don't know that I ever will. And here's why. When it comes to my business, I am always setting new, big goals. And whenever you have new, big goals, you are always growing and expanding. And last year with my business, it was a whole process of re-envisioning, and now I'm in Square Three with my business, which is where I often find myself, and I've just embraced that, that as long as I have this company, I'm always going to want to make it better. I'm always going to want to delight my clients more. I'm always going to want to expand.

It's just who I am. Maybe it's the Capricorn in me, I don't know, but I love it. I love working. I love joyfully hustling, and I'm sitting here wondering, I'm like, "Do I ever want to be in Square Four with my business?" Not right now. I'm enjoying the Hero's Saga, the hero's journey, with my business. And last year, as I was saying, as it relates to my business, I did a lot of re-envisioning. And we are in the process right now, and you all don't see what we've been working on because it hasn't been revealed yet, but I'm so excited. I'm excited to up-level. I want to be even more supportive of my members, and I already feel like we support them in such big ways, but we are in the process of up-leveling the membership. We are in the process of doing a rebrand, a refresh, getting more in alignment with all of the things that I discovered last year. And so it's a fun time, but it's also a very hard time. I'm not going to lie.

It is challenging in so many ways, and maybe with my business, there will be months where I feel like I'm a Square Four, but I just know I'm going to throw myself right back in it because this is the one area of my life that I'm always so... It's like a creative endeavor for me. I love envisioning. I love coming up with new ideas, and so because of that, me and my team, we're in constant, it feels like Square Three of just taking that action to realize these visions that I have. So Square Two and Square Three is where I hang out with my business. But here's the thing, you all, the only constant is change. And what I know to be true is that every area of my life, at some point, I will probably end up in Square One again.

Nothing ever stays the same, and that is the reality of becoming. You don't stay the same. Life doesn't stay the same. We are always being bombarded with change and fighting that only causes more suffering. And so for me, just understanding the Change Cycle, these four stages that we're always going through, has given me the courage to face it and not run from it, and also to know this is life. This is what it's all about. You can deny it, you can resist it, or you can embrace it. And that leads me to the mantra for Square Four, everything's changing and that's okay. Have a beautiful week, my friends and I will see you in next week's episode. Cheers.

Before we part ways, I have an exciting invitation for you. If you have been desiring to elevate your style, but find yourself stuck, unsure or overwhelmed, I've created something very special just for you. Join me for a private 12-week podcast series called Why Don't You, where we're going to dive deep into personal style, confidence and self-expression. It is an intimate journey, designed for the discerning woman who knows she's capable of more but needs that extra guidance and inspiration. And just so you know, this isn't about fleeting trends or rules, it's about discovering and embracing your unique style story. So to access this private series, all you need to do is go to schoolofselfimage.com/why and secure your spot. And remember, true style is timeless, and it starts with you. Why don't you join us to unveil the most stylish version of yourself?

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Let’s talk about the secret ingredient to effortless elegance: style habits.

These aren’t grand, sweeping changes but the small, daily rituals that collectively create your signature look and feel.

Think about your morning routine. Do you mindlessly throw on the first outfit you see, or do you take a moment to consider how you want to present yourself to the world?

Or consider your skincare regimen. Is it a rushed afterthought or a cherished ritual?

What about your wardrobe organization? Is it easy to access your clothes, or is it always a hunt?

Maybe it’s about accessories - ignoring the details or adding that special touch?

Remember, true style isn’t about having the most expensive clothes or the trendiest makeup. It’s about consistency in caring for yourself and your appearance in a way that authentically expresses who you are.

Are you ready to elevate your style habits and stop living on default when it comes to your personal appearance?

We are opening the doors to the School of Self-Image for 48 hours only.

Guess what we’re serving up for the month of August? You probably guessed right.

We are Elevating Our Style Habits.

Because your habits shape your self-image and your life.

In August, you’ll:

Discover Your Signature Style Trinity: Uncover the three game-changing daily habits that will transform how you look and feel. These aren’t just routines; they’re your personal formula for radiance and confidence.
Elevate Your Daily Rituals: Turn your style habits into non-negotiable acts of self-love. Watch as your confidence skyrockets and heads turn wherever you go. This is about more than looking good – it’s about feeling unstoppable.
Embrace Your Worth Through Style: Prioritize your appearance not out of vanity but as a powerful act of self-respect. Because when you invest in your style, you’re sending a clear message to the world that you value yourself.

This is your chance to transform your relationship with style, making it an effortless and joyful part of your daily life.

Click here to join us.

I’ll see you inside.

Stylishly yours,

The Power of Intentional Style HabitsWe are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.

~ Often attributed to Aristotle (true origin unknown)

Like any form of excellence, style is cultivated through consistent, intentional habits.

It’s not about occasional grand gestures but rather our small, daily choices. When we approach our style with intention, we’re not just changing our appearance – we’re transforming our self-image and how we show up in the world.

This week, choose one area of your style routine to approach with renewed intention. It could be as simple as laying out your outfit the night before or taking an extra moment to accessorize in the morning.

Remember, these small habits compound over time, creating a powerful shift in how you look and feel.

Gem-Water DecanterElevating your style isn’t just about clothing – it’s about cultivating habits that make you feel luxurious from the inside out. Enter the Gem-Water Decanter, a beautiful tool for transforming a daily necessity into a haute habit.

This elegant decanter features a wand filled with handpicked gems such as amethyst, rose quartz, and clear quartz. As water flows around the gems, it’s said to become energized with their properties, promoting balance, love, and clarity.

Whether you believe in crystals’ energetic properties or simply appreciate their beautiful design, this decanter turns hydration into a stylish ritual. Elevating even the simplest acts – like drinking water – infuses our daily routines with intention and grace. This is what haute habits are all about.

Purchase the Gem-Water Decanter5 Style Habits That Elevated My LifeEver wondered how some people always seem to look effortlessly put together? The secret likely lies in their daily habits.

In today’s podcast episode, I’ll reveal the five key style habits that transformed not just my appearance but my entire approach to life. Plus, I’ll share tips on overcoming the common challenges of forming new habits.

Get ready to discover how small, consistent actions can lead to significant changes in your style and your self-image!

Listen to The Podcast// TheEDIT

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Remember when you were a kid, and you’d ask those pesky questions that made grown-ups squirm? I sure do.

I was that little girl who’d pipe up at Sunday school, “If God turned water into wine, why can’t adults have a glass?” Talk about uncomfortable silence…

But you know what?

That audacity to question – it’s a superpower. And I think it’s time we dusted it off.

Society’s got all these unwritten rules. Don’t rock the boat. Stay in your lane.

But who made those rules anyway? And, more importantly, who says we can’t change them?

I know you might be feeling burnt out. Like that spark that used to light you up has fizzled out.

But what if – just what if – you started asking those uncomfortable questions again?

Why don’t you...

Challenge the belief that your worth is tied to your productivity?
Explore what truly brings you joy – beyond societal expectations?
Reconsider your definition of success?
Give yourself permission to prioritize your own needs and desires?
Question whether your current path aligns with your authentic self?
Reimagine your life without the constraints of “should” and “must”?
Dare to express your true self, even if it means standing out?

It’s time to peel back the layers of societal conditioning to reveal your authentic self.

Remember, it’s okay if you don’t have all the answers right now.

The power lies in asking the questions and being willing to be in that uncomfortable place of challenging the status quo of your own life.

So, why don’t you start with just one of these questions? Choose the one that resonates most with you and makes you feel a little uncomfortable, a little excited.

That’s where the growth begins.

Are you ready to rediscover your spark?

Audaciously,

P.S. Let me ask another question – are you ready to bring this questioning spirit into your style choices?

I’m asking some daring questions and dishing out a weekly dose of fearless fashion inspiration in my new private Why Don't You podcast.

Each episode offers a provocative style challenge and a game-changing mindset shift to ignite your personal fashion revolution. It’s your secret weapon for turning style into a statement of authenticity and courage.

Why don’t you… join us?

Audacious ThinkingThe most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.

~ Coco Chanel

Audacious thinking isn’t just about big ideas. It’s about approaching everyday life with courage and a willingness to question everything – even yourself.

This week, challenge one “rule” you’ve always followed without thinking. Ask yourself: Who created this rule? Does it truly serve me? What might happen if I break it?

Notice how this makes you feel. Uncomfortable? Excited? That’s where growth begins.

Remember, every paradigm shift started with someone daring to think differently. Your audacious thoughts could spark your own personal revolution.

Amalia Pleated Woven ClutchWhy don’t you… challenge the notion that accessories should be predictable? This olga berg clutch dares to ask: Who says natural materials can’t be sophisticated?

With its woven straw exterior and ruched leather trim, this chic clutch is a bold fusion of rustic charm and urban elegance. It encourages you to break free from the norm, blurring the lines between casual and formal, day and night, and empowering you to express your unique style.

Purchase the Woven ClutchThe Audacity to AskWhat if the most powerful tool for transforming your life lies in a question you haven’t dared to ask yet? In this podcast, I’m exploring the revolutionary potential of audacious questioning.

Discover how asking bold questions can transform your life – from your career choices to personal relationships, daily habits, and even your fashion sense. And learn how to craft the kind of questions that push boundaries and inspire change.

This episode is about embracing the discomfort of challenging your assumptions and finding the courage to express your true self.

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Listen to the Full Episode:Creating a Lasting Impression with Your Soul Style

Understanding your soul style involves aligning your values, personality, passions, and dreams with your outward appearance. Host Tonya Leigh stresses the importance of knowing and embracing your soul style, which transcends mere clothing choices. She breaks down the components of soul style into four key elements: values, personality, passions, and dreams.

By paying attention to how you feel in different outfits and embracing the evolution of your style, you can create a wardrobe that truly reflects your inner essence and makes you feel confident, comfortable, and authentic.

Join Tonya as she delves into the journey of self-discovery and the significance of expressing your inner self through your personal style.

Episode Details:00:00:51 - Personal Update from Tonya

00:01:45 - Reflecting on Life and Belongings

00:03:00 - Understanding Soul Style

00:05:45 - Components of Soul Style

00:06:32 - Values and Their Impact on Style

00:10:05 - Personality and Style Expression

00:12:54 - Dreams and Future Self in Style

00:16:16 - Creating Your Style Cocktail

00:17:09 - Primary Style Archetypes

00:21:03 - Reflecting and Experimenting with Style

Useful Resources:* Take The Style Quiz: http://schoolofselfimage.com/stylequiz * 12-Week Private Podcast Series: https://schoolofselfimage.com/why/ * FREE Training: https://schoolofselfimage.com/after/ * FREE Download: https://schoolofselfimage.com/self-image-manifesto/ * Sign Up For The Weekly Edit: https://schoolofselfimage.com/edit/

These moments of style confusion are often a sign that you're not fully in touch with your soul style, that unique expression of your inner self through how you show up in the world.

Today we're going to explore what soul style really means and why it's crucial to understand yours and how to start aligning your wardrobe with your deepest and truest self. So let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello my friends. Welcome to the podcast. My life right now is anything but normal. I am currently in an Airbnb because we had to leave our town home. We had extended our lease as long as they would let us, and our house isn't ready. So not only am I in an Airbnb, but I'm also working on a Saturday, which is very rare for me, but I'm actually loving it.

It's a very kind of relaxed day. People are out and about, the sun is out, and I'm just so grateful. I really am. I never complain about my work because I have such gratitude for what I get to do and I'm working ahead and batching things because next week it's on. We're moving into our house, which I'm super excited about.

Part of packing up and moving is really reflecting on your life. You're looking at the things that you have chosen and you're asking yourself, did these things really fit? Do they really fit with who I am?

And if you think about our journey, through our lives, we're trying to figure out who we are? What's this all about? Why are we here? What do we love? What are our dreams? What do we really value? And as we grow, those things change.

And when I was going through my things, I was looking at clothes. I was looking at art. I was looking at even our plates and bowls, and I was asking, "Does this fit? Does this really fit who I am?" Because I feel like the me now is the truest me I've ever been.

I mean, this is what this work does. It's more about shedding layers to reveal the truth of who you are, the truth of your essence, the truth of your soul. And there's something powerful in letting things go that no longer fit. And that really aligns with what I want to talk to you about in today's episode, which is all about your soul style.

I want you to ask yourself, what is the style of my soul? Because so often we go out and we purchase things because they're trendy, because they're on sale, because we need to fill a space in our closet or our home, and yet it doesn't quite feel right. It may look amazing if we're talking about an outfit, it may look amazing on another person. You're looking at them and being like, "God, that looks so good." And you go and you might buy the exact same thing and you put it on you and you're like, "Huh. It doesn't quite feel right." Has ever happened to you? You put something on and it might even look good. You might have people all around you saying, "Oh my God, that looks so good on you." And you're like, "No, it doesn't feel good. It might look good, but it doesn't really feel like me."

I've had that happen to me so many times. In fact, when we were moving, Fons was on the bed and I was trying on different things, and I came out in this one dress. And it is a beautiful dress. It's a silk dress. And he could not stop talking about this dress. He was like, "Oh my God, that looks so good on you." And I'm like, "But it doesn't feel good on me." There's a difference.

And it's not one of those, it doesn't feel good on me because I'm pushing my style edge or I'm not used to this yet. It's like I just know that this doesn't feel true to me. It may look good to you, but it's a no for me. And I got rid of that dress. Actually, I'm getting ready to take it to consignment tomorrow. And that's why it's so important you all that we know our soul style, because when you know the style of your soul, the essence of who you are, everything else becomes so much easier.

Your soul style isn't just about the clothes you wear. It's about the essence of who you are. It's this unique cocktail that I have drilled down to four things. It's a cocktail of your values, your personality, your passions and your dreams. And they make you, well, you.

I think about a woman named Vivian. She was at one of my events years ago, and she always dressed in muted colors and loose fitting clothes. And she told me. She was like, "I always feel so invisible and uninspired." And her clothes represented that. Her clothes, literally, she was dressing in a way to make her invisible and uninspired. And we talked about her style for quite a bit, and we drilled down that her true self was so vibrant and bold and creative. In fact, when you talk to her, it was a little bit jarring because the way she presented with her clothing was so different than our conversation.

And what she discovered is that she'd been dressing to blend in when deep down she longed to stand uniquely in who she was. And so once she started aligning her outward appearance with her inner self, not only did her style transform, that was just the beginning. Her whole life began to shift. She switched careers. She got into a relationship that was more aligned. She moved to a new city and she was feeling more alive than ever. And that's the power of understanding and embracing your soul style.

So let's talk about these four components. First, we have your values. And I have a whole other podcast on figuring out what your values are. But your values are the principles that guide your life, and I always recommend that you drill it down to three. If you value everything, then do you really value anything? What if you could only live your life based on three guiding principles that when you have decisions to make, when you're trying to figure out what to buy, when you're trying to figure out where to live, when you're trying to figure out the career for you, when you're trying to figure out what art to purchase or not purchase, these are the principles that guide your life. They're the non-negotiables, the hills that you will die on. Maybe it's authenticity, growth or compassion.

For me, one of my core values is beauty. I love beauty. Now, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I love beautiful things, art, people, places. I love taking care of my beauty, and I have been ridiculed for that. And that's okay. It's something that guides me. From ever since I was a little girl, I have loved and appreciated beautiful things. I feel my best when I take care of my home. I feel my best when I take care of myself. I feel my best when I tend to the details of my life. Those little things that do for me make life so beautiful. And so that is a core principle for me.

Connection is another one. I have to feel connected to myself, and I love feeling connected to the people that I love. It is huge. And so having these core values that guide me are crucial because if not, we are going to be thrown here and there in life. And it also comes down to your style, like how you're showing up. So for me, since one of my core values is beauty, it requires that I get very clear on what is beautiful to me. Not what the magazines tell me should be beautiful. Not what other people consider beautiful. But what is beautiful for me.

And this is why a style journey is so powerful, you all. It's about so much more than the clothes. It requires that you have a level of introspection. It requires that you know who you are. But knowing that beauty is so important to me when I'm buying clothes, I'm very mindful. Does this look beautiful to my eye? Do I like how it looks on me?

I was shopping with a friend recently and she pulled this dress out and she was like, "Oh my God, this is so beautiful." And my immediate reaction was, "No, it's not, for me." Now, it looked like her. It was beautiful for her. But before I knew this and before I got in touch with this part of myself, I would have probably put that dress on and bought it because I didn't know any better. She told me it was beautiful. It must be beautiful because she's very stylish, by the way.

But this is why you need to know your core values. Maybe you value simplicity. Well, that is going to affect your style choices. Maybe one of your core values is freedom. And this may show up through flowy fabrics and unconstructed jackets and shoes that you can easily slip on and off. But you're going to have to be able to translate your values. What does that really look like in clothing form?

Let's say your value is creativity. Now, I want you to imagine that you cannot tell someone your value. You have to show them through an outfit. What would that outfit look like? How would you represent creativity? Such a fun question. So what are your core values and how might they be expressing themselves in your style choices?

Next, we have your personality. This is about understanding your unique traits and tendencies and ways of expressing yourself. Are you an introvert who recharges in solitude? Or you're an extrovert who comes alive in a crowd? Are you more analytical or more intuitive?

For me, I am more of an ambivert, meaning I have a little bit of both. Although as I get older, I'm leaning more towards being an introvert. But I do enjoy those moments where I get to be around people. It gives me energy up to a certain point. And I also have a strong intuitive streak. So in my style, I was thinking about this question, it shows up through a mix of structured and fluid pieces. And I'm also drawn to unique, one of a kind like statement pieces that speak to me on an intuitive level. I don't even have to know why. I'm just like, "Yep, that's it." I trust my intuition.

Now, an analytical person, their style will be based on logic and strategy and what makes sense. And that's a beautiful thing too. It's going to feel very aligned, and they probably have spreadsheets and they know exactly what's hanging in their closet, which I always recommend, but they approach their style from a very analytical point of view. Now, for me to do that, it wouldn't feel good because that's not part of my personality. But for the analytical mind, that is a perfect way to approach their wardrobe.

Next, we have your passions as part of your style cocktail. What lights you up? What could you talk about for hours? What are those things, those topics that you get lost in? You lose track of time. You forget to eat. Your passions are a wellspring of inspiration for your soul style.

If you're a nature lover, you might be drawn to organic textures and earthy tones. If you're a tech enthusiast, you might gravitate towards sleek, modern designs and innovative materials. So your passions also are a part of your soul style.

And then finally, we have your dreams. Your style isn't just about who you are. It's also about who you're becoming. What do you aspire to? What's the vision that you have for your future self? Your dream should be reflected in your style choices too.

When I first started my business over 15 years ago, you all, it's crazy to me. Time has really gone by fast, and yet sometimes it feels like it's gone by so slow. But I realized early on this concept, because I had been showing up and working on being my future self before I started my business. And I knew if you want to have a successful business, you need to show up in a successful way.

And that's going to look different for all of us. It doesn't necessarily mean power suits, but it means you showing up in a way that truly represents your personal brand. And remember, this is when I didn't have a team. I often tell the story. I started out with two email subscribers, my mom and my dad, and they had no idea what I was doing. But I began to show up with not only the thoughts, but also in my style, like I thought the most successful version of me would be showing up. I would get up in the morning, I would get dressed in something that felt really, really good, and I would go into my office and I would get to work. And this was before I had lots of people listening. I didn't even have a podcast then. This was before I had a lot of clients. But I showed up as my future self.

And what that did for me is it affected my own self-image. And it reflected back to me how I wanted to think about myself and see myself. And that energy is magnetic. I would be out and about and I would strike up conversations and I would tell people, "I am a coach." And they would be like, "Oh, tell me more." And I do believe my presentation had something to do with that.

Now people can poo-poo that all they want, but we cannot dismiss that we live in a very visual world. We are drawn to art, to design. So therefore wouldn't style matter too? It does.

And what's most important for me is not that you all look a certain way. That's not what we're going for here. Let's be clear. This is why it's called your soul style. What I want for you all is that you are showing up in a way that truly represents who you are at your deepest level, at your core.

That may be rocking a Metallica T-shirt with some ripped jeans. And this is a shout-out to my friend Robin. I stayed with her in Denver a couple months ago, and we were in her closet and we were going through things and I realized this was a part of her style, part of her soul style that I didn't get to see that often. Because typically we go out to dinner, and while she always has a little bit of an edge to her style, I hadn't seen the edginess of who she truly is. And all I could think about is how can we showcase that more? She's wanting to elevate her style, but never to the point of leaving behind this essential part of herself.

So remember, your soul style is a combination of your values, your personality, your passions, and your dreams. But here's where it gets really interesting. These four components blend together to create what I call your style cocktail. Just like that master mixologist combines different spirits and flavors to create the perfect drink for you, your soul style is a unique blend of different elements.

Now, if you are curious what your primary style archetype might be, I have created a soul style quiz. You can take it at schoolofselfimage.com/stylequizz. But I want you to remember this. You're not just one thing. You're a beautiful complex mix. And so when you get your main type, just know that's rarely is it just one thing. I like to think of that as the main ingredient. So when you're shopping, you know you need these pieces, but you're going to be a blend of different things.

For example, my own style cocktail is primarily classic. I really love those timeless pieces, those clean lines. But I also have a splash of dramatic, which shows up with bold statement pieces. I love big, wide belts. I like very striking silhouettes. But I also have a little splash of romantic, and you'll see that in softer fabrics. I love lace. I love ruffles. And so you put that all together and it creates my own style cocktail that feels like me.

Now, let's talk about these archetypes for a moment. I use eight. And they each have own flavor. We have the romantic, the classic, the dramatic, the edgy, the sporty, the bohemian, the minimalist, and the preppy. But here's the thing, you're not just one type. You're a mix. You might be a classic with an edgy streak or a bohemian with a touch of romantic. The possibilities are endless, and that's what makes you you.

I'm reminded of the quote by Oscar Wilde where he says, "Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken." Your soul style is your way of being yourself and expressing your inner world to the outer world on purpose.

I think about one of my clients, Emma. She had always admired the clean simplicity style, which we call minimalist, but she always felt like something was missing. She was like never felt quite right in just a purely minimalist outfit. And upon working with her and coaching and really drilling down, we discovered that she also has this romantic splash in her style cocktail that she had never really honored. And so she started to incorporate those elements with softer fabrics. She got some vintage inspired pieces, some very delicate jewelry, and suddenly she was like, "This feels like me. It feels complete."

Your soul style journey is about discovering all parts of yourself and learning how to express them on purpose, unapologetically, authentically. It's about creating a personal style that feels like home.

Now, you might be wondering, "Why is it so important to know my soul style?" Well, I'll tell you why it's been important for me. Number one, it simplifies your life. When you know your soul style, decision-making becomes so much easier. Shopping becomes more focused. Getting dressed in the morning becomes a joy rather than a chore. You save money and you build a wardrobe of pieces that you love and that work together seamlessly. It also aligns your inner and your outer world.

Do you ever feel like you don't feel like your outside is representing who you're on the inside? When these are in alignment, you feel more confident, you feel more authentic, you feel more at peace with yourself.

And then finally, it becomes your legacy. Your style is part of the story of how people will remember you, is part of the mark that you leave on the world. Think about certain people. Let's say Dita Von Teese. You picture her and you immediately think of her style. Think about Iris Apfel. I don't even have to paint a picture for you. You already know. Before you think about who she was, you probably see a picture of her style.

And your style reflects your soul. You create a lasting impression that's uniquely and beautifully you. So how do you start embracing your unique style cocktail? Well, first of all, go and take the quiz. Go to schoolofselfimage.com/stylequiz. It's a great starting point to understand your primary style archetype.

And then reflect on the four components that we discussed, your values, your personality, your passions, your dreams. Put some words to it. See what shows up for you. And then ask yourself, how are these showing up or not showing up in my current style? And then experiment. Try incorporating different elements from different archetypes and see what resonates with you. And then finally, pay attention to how you feel in different outfits.

Your soul style should make you feel confident, comfortable and like you. It should feel like freedom. And remember, your style cocktail will evolve over time. As you grow and change, your style will most likely shift as well. It's all a journey. Just embrace it, have fun. Style shouldn't be so serious. And yet, when you know what your style is, life really does become more simplified and more fun.

So I want to remind you of something really important. Your soul style is about so much more than clothes. It's about showing up in the world as your true self. It's about aligning your outer expression with your inner essence. When you do that, you will radiate so much confidence and joy. As Ralph Lauren once said, "Style is very personal. It has nothing to do with fashion. Fashion is over very quickly. Style is forever."

Your soul style is timeless because it's uniquely and beautifully you. So go take the soul style quiz, schoolofselfimage.com/stylequiz, and embrace your unique signature style cocktail because when you do, you don't just transform your style, you transform your life. Have a beautiful and stylish week, my friends. I will see you on next week's episode. Cheers.

Before we part ways, I have an exciting invitation for you. If you have been desiring to elevate your style, but find yourself stuck, unsure, or overwhelmed, I've created something very special just for you. Join me for a private 12-week podcast series called Why Don't You, where we're going to dive deep into personal style, confidence, and self-expression. It is an intimate journey designed for the discerning woman who knows she's capable of more, but needs that extra guidance and inspiration. And just so you know, this isn't about fleeting trends or rules. It's about discovering and embracing your unique style story.

So to access this private series, all you need to do is go to schoolofselfimage.com/why and secure your spot. And remember, true style is timeless and it starts with you. Why don't you join us and unveil the most stylish version of yourself?

Enjoy the Show? Don't miss another episode!Pick your favorite platform below:The Self-Image Manifesto

You’re Invited To Live An Extraordinary Life!

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Can I be real for a moment? When I started coaching, I was scared to show my true self. I played it safe and generic. My business grew... but slowly.

It wasn’t until I embraced and shared my truest self - my love for flowers, fashion, and all things French – that things really took off. Suddenly, I was attracting women who held similar values and aspirations. Business became even more fun.

Today, let’s talk about infusing style into your career, no matter what you do.

My journey began in an unexpected place: the ICU. As a nurse, I didn’t just administer meds. I’d take time to make patients feel human again - with a gentle hair brush, a soothing face wash, or even just a dab of lip balm.

The lesson? Style isn’t just clothes. It’s how we show up in the world, care for ourselves and others, and express our unique essence - even in tough times.

Fifteen years into coaching, I’m still carrying that lesson. I talk openly about the things I love – style, travel, wellness, and, yes, even champagne. Why? They represent joy, self-care, and celebration - things we all need in our lives and careers.

Style isn’t a one-size-fits-all fashion show - it’s your unique signature on the world.

A teacher? Style could be in your creative lesson plans.

An executive? Maybe it’s your awe-inducing presentations.

A stay-at-home mom? Perhaps it’s how you organize your home or plan family activities.

Cultivating a strong self-image isn’t about fitting a mold. It’s about honoring who you are and letting that authenticity shine through everything you do.

So, I challenge you: how can you bring more of YOU into your work and life today?

Remember, embracing my authentic self changed everything for me. So, don’t be afraid to let your flag fly, whether covered in flowers, polka dots, or fleurs-de-lis!

How will you add a touch of “you” to your career today?

Stay fabulously you,

P.S. Craving more style inspiration for your career and life?

For a weekly dose of fashion inspiration throughout the summer, sign up for our private Why Don’t You podcast.

Each episode offers a quick, actionable challenge and an artful mindset shift to inspire your own style renaissance.

It’s like your weekly secret weapon for stylish success.

How Embodying Your True Self Can Boost Your Career Your work is to discover your world and then,

with all your heart, give yourself to it.

~ Often attributed to Buddha (true origin unknown)

Success isn’t just about what you achieve but how you show up in the process. When you align your career with your true self, you unlock a powerful source of motivation and creativity.

Embodying your authentic self at work doesn’t mean being unprofessional. It means bringing your unique perspective, passions, and strengths to everything you do.

This week, identify one aspect of your true self you’ve hesitated to express at work. Find a small, appropriate way to incorporate it into your professional life. Notice how it affects your energy, productivity, and job satisfaction.

Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will ListenClear communication is key in our journey to stylish success. That’s why I’m excited to share Donald Miller’s “Building a StoryBrand,” a game-changer for anyone looking to elevate their professional presence.

This book isn’t just about marketing; it’s about crafting a compelling narrative around your work and your unique value. I’ve used these principles to refine my own brand message, and the results have been incredible. It’s like finding the perfect accessory that pulls your whole outfit together – suddenly, everything clicks.

Whether you’re a business owner, a corporate professional, or are looking to make a bigger impact in your field, this book will help you communicate your value with style and clarity.

Purchase Building a StoryBrand BookStylish Careers with Sherry and Carmin BlackJoin me for an inspiring conversation with mother-daughter duo Sherry and Carmin Black as we explore how they’ve woven style, purpose, and authenticity into their entrepreneurial journeys.

From their innovative approaches to their commitment to their values, Sherry and Carmin embody what it means to have a stylish career. We’ll discuss how they’ve navigated challenges, leveraged their unique perspectives, and built their own successful businesses.

This episode is a masterclass in stylish success.

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Listen to the Full Episode:From Overwhelmed to Empowered: Transforming Your Style with Five Key Habits

Celebrating 400 episodes! In this special episode, Tonya reflects on her podcast journey, starting from her first nervous recording to reaching this significant milestone. She shares the importance of pushing past self-doubt and critical voices to keep going. A heartfelt thank you to listeners and her team for the support.

Then, Tonya dives into ‘The Five Style Habits That Transformed My Life’.

Intentional style habits play a crucial role in enhancing personal style, saving time, money, and energy, while boosting confidence and authenticity. In a podcast episode, Tonya Leigh discusses five key style habits that have elevated her life, highlighting their positive impact on overall well-being.

1. Intentional Shopping with a Style Vision: Developing a clear style vision helps individuals make intentional shopping decisions, reducing impulse purchases and ensuring every item aligns with their personal style.
2. Daily Outfit Photos: Taking daily outfit photos and analyzing them with curiosity rather than criticism helps individuals understand what works for them.
3. Quarterly Closet Edits: Regularly reviewing and organizing the closet allows individuals to assess their wardrobe, identify items that no longer serve them, and make room for new pieces that align with their style vision.
4. Keeping Everything in Sight: Organizing the closet for maximum visibility helps individuals see and appreciate all their clothing items, reducing the feeling of having nothing to wear.
5. Practicing Gratitude for the Wardrobe: Cultivating gratitude for the current wardrobe fosters a positive relationship with clothing, leading to contentment and authenticity.

Tune in for an inspiring episode filled with gratitude, motivation, and style inspiration.

Episode Details:03:09 Style as form of self-care.

05:56 Relationship with clothing and style.

11:09 Style habits for elevated life.

13:15 Creating a style vision.

18:36 Elevating style with daily photos.

26:36 Quarterly Closet Edits

31:47 Creating a sense of abundance.

35:30 Gratitude in building a wardrobe.

42:17 Elevating personal style and confidence.

Useful Resources:* JOIN the Membership: https://schoolofselfimage.com/coaching-collective-waitlist/ * 12-Week Private Podcast Series: https://schoolofselfimage.com/why/ * FREE Training: https://schoolofselfimage.com/after/ * FREE Download: https://schoolofselfimage.com/self-image-manifesto/ * Sign Up For The Weekly Edit: https://schoolofselfimage.com/edit/

Connect with Master Life Coach Tonya Leigh: Website: https://schoolofselfimage.com * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tonyaleigh * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TonyaLeighOfficial * TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thetonyaleigh * YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TonyaLeighOfficial DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:*What? 400 episodes. This may be the longest intro of one of my podcasts, but here's what happened. I finished recording this episode that you're about to listen to and I went to put it into the folder for my podcast team and I saw it was episode 400. And I had to take a moment. I often preach that we as women don't stop and celebrate enough how far we've come because we're always in it. We're always busy heading to the next thing, and I almost did that. Then I was like, "Wait, Tonya. 400 episodes. That's a big deal." And then I went back and looked and realized that my first episode was almost 10 years ago. August of 2014. I'm blown away. I think you get into the grind of doing stuff and you don't even realize how much you've done. But I just want to say thank you. Thank you all so much for tuning into this podcast every single week. Thank you to my team who helps me to pull it off. And I'm going to thank me.

I remember when I first started this podcast, I was so nervous you all. I read my blogs. Basically, if you go back and listen to my very first podcast, it's just me reading my blog post because I'd never done it. And anytime we do things that we've never done before, it's scary. It's out of our comfort zone. And our brains always chattering how it's not good enough and you don't know what you're doing. But I am here to tell you all if you keep going, if you refuse to let those voices stop you, you're going to look back on that first day of whatever it is that you decided to do and be so thankful that you didn't give in to the critical voices, even the critical voices of people out there. I've got negative reviews. I've heard it all, and I just tuned it out. And I thought about you all you. You that love this podcast. You that have benefited from it. And I'm just so grateful that I kept going even when it was hard, even when I was feeling overwhelmed, even when I thought I didn't have anything useful to say. I just kept showing up thinking about you all.

And so congratulations to all of us. Seriously, I'm just blown away. 400 episodes of this podcast. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. And now let's dive in where I'm going to be talking about the five style habits that have elevated my life.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello, friends. Do you know what's fun? Talking about style. I told y'all that this was going to be my summer of style, so you're going to be hearing a lot about it over the next couple of months. But when I talk about style, I typically have two camps of people. I have the women who are intrigued and excited and they love it as much as I do. And then I have another camp of people who think it's superficial, who think it's a waste of time, who think that women who love style or who care about style are somehow vain. And if you're in that camp, I get it, but I want to encourage you, I want to challenge you to think about style as a form of self-care.

When people tell me that they think style doesn't matter, one of the first thoughts that I have is to me that's like saying your home doesn't matter or art, music, design doesn't matter. It's all just energy that is expressed out into the world. And I do believe that the reason why some people say that is that they have equated style with expensive things. They've equated style with self-obsession. They've equated style with this vanity. And I want to argue that style isn't any of that. Of course, it's a tool and any tool can be used for good or for bad. But I want to talk about style as a tool that you use for your own care, for a way to feel better, to make your life better. I also think that one of the reasons why people may have this negative relationship with style ... And so they have concluded that they just don't care, it's not important, is because it has been so frustrating and overwhelming and confusing.

How many times have we stood in our closets that are packed feeling like we have nothing to wear or we've gone shopping and come home with items that don't work for us? And then we have the guilt of unused clothes and the stress of a disorganized wardrobe. The feeling of being disconnected from ourselves. And so in those moments, it's easier just to say, "You know what, none of this matters. I'm just going to stop worrying about it and just get on with my life." But the problem with this is that clothing, just like food is something that we utilize every single day. And when we are interacting with something every single day, we want to make sure that our relationship with that thing that we're interacting with is healthy and it serves us and it feels good.

I'll never forget this French woman saying the three things that we do every single day is that we eat, we get dressed, and we live in our homes. And those are oftentimes the three things that we neglect the most. Think about that. The three things that you are going to be doing every day for the rest of your life. Do you like your relationship with those three things? Do you love your relationship with food? Do you love your relationship with your home? And do you love your relationship with your clothing? If you want to have a better relationship with anything, but specifically for this podcast, I'm talking about your style, it really boils down to your habits. Creating intentional style habits will first of all save you time by reducing decision fatigue, making, getting dressed simple and effortless. It will also save you money because it's going to allow you to eliminate those impulse purchases and those things that just collect in your closet but aren't really utilized. And style habits can also save you energy by decluttering both your physical space and your mental space.

So I want you to imagine opening your closet and just feeling a sense of calm, excitement, alignment. Imagine packing for a trip, knowing exactly what to bring and not bringing so much stuff you need like three suitcases. Imagine putting on an outfit that truly reflects who you are. Boosting your mood, your confidence, and therefore your entire day. Style has this trickle effect because it's not even about the clothes, it's about you and how you feel. And when you make intentional choices about how you think, how you feel, and how you show up in the world, the benefit has to be positive. This isn't just about looking good, but let's not lie to ourselves. It's okay to want to look good. I feel like people are ashamed these days for caring about how they look. Now, I do think there's a fine line. It really does depend on the energy from which this comes. Because if you're trying to look good to get approval and to get everybody to admire you, that is a slippery slope.

But if you want to look good for yourself, there is nothing wrong with that. But this is really about feeling good. It is about respecting yourself enough to present your best self to yourself. It's about aligning your outer appearance with your inner values and aspirations and what that looks like on you is going to be different than what it's going to look like on me. That's why I don't want you all to get it confused. When I talk about style, I do believe that sometimes your brain immediately goes to, well, this is going to be expensive, or, oh my God, I'm going to have to go out and buy designer handbags. Not at all. Because are all so beautifully and uniquely different and we have different values, we have different dreams, we have different priorities. But again, the one thing we have to do every day is get up and get dressed so why not be confident in that? And it boils down to your style habits. Your style habits are those things that you do on repeat that affect your appearance.

So today I'm going to share with you five style habits that have elevated my life. I have others, but I couldn't share them all in this podcast. But if you are a School of Self-Image member, this will be our focus for the month of August. We're going to dive deeper into this. We're going to put it into practice. And if you are listening to this and you're thinking, "Oh my goodness, this is what I need. I need to focus on this because I'm frustrated with my closet. I'm frustrated with how much money I'm spending on clothes, and yet I always feel like I have nothing to wear. I'm frustrated that I just can't figure this out." I have some good news. We have opened the doors to the membership for 48 hours for those of you who want to get in for the month of August. Our focus will be elevating our style habits. We're going to go much deeper into this topic because it is deep believe it or not.

When I'm coaching women around style, the stuff that comes up really shows you that this isn't just about what color I should wear or what is the must haves of a staple wardrobe. There are deep beliefs. There are deep emotions that surround this topic. And so I'm super excited to coach you all. I'm super excited to go deeper into this topic and share more of the style habits that have really impacted my life in such a positive way. So if you want to join us, you can go to schoolofselfimage.com/join, and I cannot wait to see you inside.

Now let's talk about the five style habits that have elevated my life. Habit number one, intentional shopping with a style vision. Now, I'm going to speak about this very broadly. This is something that I go deep into in the style experience, which is my six-month signature program where we dive deep into this topic. But what do I mean by a style vision first of all? A style vision is a very clear idea of how you want to express your being in the world. And there's a lot of different elements involved such as your personality and your values and your aspirations and your lifestyle. But years ago, I was notorious for just buying things. I would go to the store, I would see something on a mannequin and I'd be like, "Oh, that looks good." And I would buy it. Or I would be online shopping out of boredom and want to get a dopamine hit and I would see something and I would buy it.

Now, let's think of the cascade effect of this. So you buy something, you bring it home, or you order it online, it arrives at your house and you put it on and all of a sudden you're like, "Gosh. I hate the way this looks. I thought it would look better." So now you're spinning in negative thoughts about how you just can't seem to figure this out, how nothing looks good on you. You may start berating your beautiful body. And so now you're feeling frustrated, disappointed, hopeless as it relates to your style and your closet. But then let's think about the other factors involved. Now we have to package this stuff up or either go back to the store to return it. I want you to think about all of the negative emotion and all of the wasted energy and time that comes from not having a clear style vision.

When I saw myself in this pattern and feeling stuck in it, I was like, something has got to change. I was spending my time, my energy, and my money in a negative way. And this is what happens not just with our clothing, but in life when we don't have a vision, when we don't know where we want to go, when we don't know how we want to be, we can often just spin. And so we have to get off of this crazy roller coaster and figure this stuff out. It's why I always say a style journey is one of the most amazing journeys you'll ever go on as a woman, because again, it's not just about picking out an outfit, it's getting to know who you really are. And so I spent a lot of time ... I made it a habit to study myself. To study my preferences, what I loved and what I didn't love. To study my values, to get really clear on what is really important to you Tonya, and are you shopping accordingly?

Are you styling your life to represent your unique values? And you knew what else this required, that I get clear on? What I wanted for my life. What were my dreams? What were my aspirations? And was I dressing accordingly? Because everything is energy. It's all energy. I'm a big believer in dressing for your life now and dressing for the future. And there is this beautiful bridge that connects the two. And we can walk on that bridge in clothing that will help us get there faster. I could do a whole podcast just on this topic alone because I know without a doubt, a hundred percent that clothing has helped me create the life that I'm living today. No doubt in my mind. And it wasn't about other people. It was about the message that I was constantly sending to myself. There's a big difference in waking up, being unintentional with what you're putting on, feeling like you are just slogging through the day versus being intentional and creating this vibrancy, creating this excitement, creating this care of yourself.

And I don't think it is a coincidence that when I started doing this work around my style, that my life started to elevate. And it did start with a habit. A habit of studying myself. And through this habit, I started to create mood boards. So I'm going to get more specific now. I started to create mood boards. I kept a style journal and I figured out what was my personal style statement. A style statement is typically one statement, three adjectives that really defines the core of your self-expression. And once I had that, it allowed me to be more intentional with my shopping. Now with a style vision comes deeper work and education. Getting to know what colors look best on me, getting to know my body's proportions, getting to know what fabrics I love and the ones that I don't love. Learning what cuts work for me and what cuts don't. All of that was part of my style vision. But once I had all of that, then shopping became so much easier.

I was one of those people that when I would go into a store, I was completely overwhelmed and I would just start grabbing things hoping that they would work. And nine times out of 10, they didn't. It was like shooting in the dark. And so getting to know myself, not just my preferences and my style statement, but also my body, all of that again, has made shopping so ... I want to say effortless. It's not quite effortless because you do have to look. But the more you do it, the easier it gets. Often say whatever you practice the most is what you're getting the best at. And I've gotten really good at practicing being intentional. And from this intentionality, I have a shopping list.

Every season I know what I need to fill the gaps in my wardrobe. And there are other factors that go into that like what are the events coming up? What's priority in my right now? But having this intentionality around shopping, I cannot tell you all how much money it saved, how much time it's saved, how much energy it saved me. And it all starts with having a style vision. And that is a habit. It's a habit of checking in with yourself. It's a habit of getting to know yourself. It's a habit of self-awareness and self-reflection. And that is something that we do within the membership. We have a process called the Daily Five Journal that we engage with every single day that helps us to be intentional. So that is habit number one.

Habit number two, that really elevated my life as it relates to style is one that women are often most uncomfortable with. But I will tell you, if you do this and then you pair it with style education, this habit will change your style. It will help you in ways I can't even explain right now. You just have to do it. I don't do this as often now. It was something that I did a lot early on. It was a habit. But now that I feel like I have solidified my style, I only do this if I am experimenting or something doesn't quite feel right with an outfit. But daily outfit photos in a full length mirror will change your style. And it might sound a bit self-indulgent at first, but hear me out. This practice isn't about vanity. It's about your awareness and learning and educating yourself. You don't have to show these to anyone. I didn't. I did it for me. I wanted to be a student of myself. And in this case, I wanted to be a student of my style.

So every morning I would get dressed and I would take a quick full length photo of my outfit. And it only takes a moment. But the insights are invaluable. And by documenting your daily outfits, you can begin to understand what's working and what's not. You can begin to see patterns in the outfits that you really love and you feel most confident in. You can start to see the ones that you don't love and you're like, "I don't like that outfit." And then you can be like, "Okay. Why not?" Oh, I think it might be the cut or I think it's the color. You're going to start to see things when you study yourself objectively. Now, here's a very important rule of this habit. I don't have a lot of rules, but this is one. To be objective about anything you must be curious instead of critical. You cannot learn about yourself as you are criticizing yourself. I want you all to replace criticism with curiosity. Being curious about what you're seeing. Doing it from a place of love and wanting to improve your style, not from a place of self-loathing and telling yourself you aren't good enough, that something's wrong with you.

And listen, I have coached women of all sizes, all shapes, all colors, and no one is immune from this. I think we have this belief, oh, if I could just look like this person, then I wouldn't be so critical. Now, that's not true. I have coached women that could probably have walked the runway, and they are oftentimes more critical. We have to love ourselves to change ourselves. That's the irony in all of this. When you begin to love and accept yourself, that's when you can change. That is a famous Carl Rogers quote. The curious paradox is that when I love and accept myself as I am, then I can change.

So taking this outfit photo every single day as a style habit really did elevate my style and my life because again, I started to see patterns, I started to see proportions, I started to see colors. That's why I don't really buy a lot of black now. I used to have a closet full of black. That's all I would buy. It was my safe go-to choice because black is slimming. Black is chic. So why not fill our closet? But I started to really study my photos and I was like, it's actually not the most flattering color on me, because I would put it beside a photo where I was wearing navy or gray or even like a cream. And I was like, "Oh my God. I look so much younger and more vibrant in these colors versus black." And that's from studying my photos. So that's habit number two. Take a daily outfit photo and study it from a place of curiosity, not criticism.

Habit number three. This one I love. Some of y'all may hate this one, but I love it because it's helped me to streamline and stay on top of my closet. And it's also allowed me to stay on top of myself to make sure that I am being intentional and making sure my closet doesn't get out of control. Y'all know what I'm talking about. I swear, I think sometimes our clothes are having sex with each other and reproducing because I will go into my closet ... And think about it. I just did this three months ago and there will be a couple of things, I'm like, "Where did you come from? I didn't know you were here." And so doing this every season had so many benefits. It allows me to sit down with myself every three months and ask, "Okay. How are you feeling? What's working? What's not working? What's the next level? What do you need to let go of?" And doing that through my close.

And so during these reviews, I like to go through every piece and ask questions like, does it fit? Have I worn it? If we're not wearing things, why are we filling our house up with them? Why are we keeping them around? And usually that comes from scarcity. Well, if I get rid of it, I may never be able to have something like it again. Or maybe there will be another steampunk party like the one I went to 15 years ago and I can use this again. It's just such negative energy that often causes us to hold onto things that are wanting to exit our lives.

And it's really interesting because as I'm recording this, I just yesterday finished packing up my house. We are in this weird transition where we are in between. Our lease ended and we couldn't extend it because we extended it three times and they had people moving in and the house isn't ready and so we're in an Airbnb. But nevertheless packed up my clothing. And keep in mind, I do this every season, so I'm onto myself. And there were a couple pieces that I held onto last season thinking, "God, I spent so much money on these things and I'm hoping that I can use them again." But the reality is I don't like them that much on me now. I've changed and they don't feel right for me. And so I let them go. I boxed them up, I'm going to take them to consignment, but I could see the energy of the guilt and the sunken cost fallacy of I better keep it because I invested so much in it even though I haven't worn it in actually three seasons. And I don't see myself wearing it. It's like I'm trying to will myself into wanting to wear something that I don't actually want to wear. And so I got rid of it.

So we need to ask ourselves, do I even wear it? Do I see myself wearing it or am I trying to will myself into wearing something that I don't actually want to wear? And then does it spark joy? I do love that Marie Kondo question because if it's not sparking joy, it doesn't belong in our lives. And then finally, I love this question. Does it belong in the closet of my future self? So again, as I was talking earlier, I love dressing for our current self and her style and also having pieces that bridge into the future, into our future selves. And I want us to be wearing those things now. And so these quarterly closet edits really allow you to go deeper than just am I keeping it or letting it go? It causes you to ask the questions of yourself to reflect and to think about what's working in your life and what's not, what you love, what you don't love, what you value, where you're going. It's a ritual. A quarterly ritual of personal development where you get to stop for a moment, go into your closet and go deeper beyond the close to look at what's driving your behaviors, to assess your needs, to realign your wardrobe with your current lifestyle and your aspirations.

And I will tell you the one mantra that has really, really supported me and the willingness to let go is ... I love the mantra of I'm letting this go so that something else better can take its place. I'm clearing the space for something better to come into my life. And it may not be clothes. It may be something totally different. But that has given me the courage to let things go faster. So style habit number three, a quarterly style edit.

Style habit number four is going to be a big one. I know I'm not alone in this, and before I tell you what it is, I just want you to ask yourself if this sounds familiar. You can't find things and so you end up buying things you don't need or you spend so much time, you really waste time looking for things that you know have but you can't find. Maybe you know you're going to wear your blazer today and you're like, "I need that simple white tee to wear underneath it, but I can't find it. It's got to be somewhere." Style habit number four, ladies, is to keep everything in sight. You know what they say, out of sight, out of mind. Well, it's true. If you don't see it, you forget you have it or you're frustrated and like I said, you waste a lot of time looking for it.

I got into the habit of organizing and keeping my closet so that it maximizes visibility. Now, I know that we're all working with space constraints. Trust me, if anyone knows this, it's me because I've had some tiny closets. I actually lived in a place about five, six years ago that didn't even have a closet, so I was forced to put everything out. It was like a loft area, so I had my clothes hanging in the loft. But I've also had little tiny closets, and it is doable no matter your situation. It is about systems. It's about you organizing your mind to keep up with those systems and making this a priority.

Personally, I really love open shelving. I love being able to see my folded items for sweaters, jeans, and other sturdy items that don't easily wrinkle. Also, clear storage containers. Using those clear containers, you can see what's in them. For the longest time, I would just put things in a box where I couldn't see what was in it, and I would forget. I would be like, "What's in that box?" And I'd pull it down and be like, "Oh my God, I've been looking for that hat. I forgot that I put it in that box." And so having those clear containers allows you to actually see what's in them. Vertical hanging is so useful, especially if you are working with smaller spaces. It allows you to hang multiple pieces on one hanger, and that was ideal for camisoles and tank tops. Over the door organizers, you can put them on the back of your door so you can put your shoes and your accessories.

Fold your clothes vertically. This is the KonMari method where you fold your clothes that you can see everything so they're not stacked on top of each other, but they're stacked beside each other. I love hooks for certain things. I like slide out belt racks. Remember, the key is to find a system that works for you and your specific space and lifestyle. But I guarantee you this, it is going to first of all, help eliminate frustration that I have nothing to wear a feeling you will begin to see, oh, actually I do because I can actually see my options. So putting together outfits will become so much easier. Also, it's going to save you money. When you can see what you have, you're less likely to buy those duplicate items or pieces that don't fill a genuine gap in your wardrobe. When you can clearly see, oh, no, wait, I actually already own three white button down shirts. I probably don't need another one. Or you can clearly see, oh my goodness, I have five, six pairs of jeans in that same light wash color. I don't need another pair of jeans. When you are seeing that every day, it creates this sense of abundance in your closet where you're like, "I already have that." And that leads me to habit number five. In fact, the first four habits are leading up to what I think is the best habit to have.

Style habit number five is to practice having gratitude for your wardrobe. I have experienced, and I've expressed it on this podcast before, and I know I've expressed it in the membership, but the more abundant I feel, the less I want. The less money I spend, and therefore it creates more abundance. When you practice gratitude for your current wardrobe and you truly spend time with it, you're in there doing your quarterly edits, you the style vision, and you're intentionally shopping and appreciating everything that you have and are going to have, it's like having that gratitude ahead of time. When you are putting things out where you can see them, when you're taking those daily outfit photos and you are realizing how blessed you are to have clothes, and at the same time being curious about what's working and what's not, it does create this sense of abundance. The sense of I am so blessed to have what I already have. We live in a world that tries to sell us on the idea that if you can just have more, more, then you're going to be happier. And so we are online shopping, we are stuffing our closets full of more things. Then where's that happiness? It's not in your clothes because clothes don't create happiness. You create your happiness. I want our clothing, what we wear to be an extension of our joy, not the source of our joy.

Because if it's the source of your joy, then you think, oh, I have to buy more and more to have joy and that's just not how it works. But I also get that you may be in a place where you feel like maybe you haven't been intentional with your shopping, maybe you haven't had that style vision and there's a gap in your wardrobe. And you may be thinking, "Well, Tonya, are you telling me not to buy anything else?" No. I see gratitude as a foundation, not only for my wardrobe, but for my life. Appreciating what you have doesn't mean you can't desire new things. But gratitude does help you create a positive relationship with your current wardrobe. And I love growing from that positive place. It can reduce impulse buying and over consumption. And also gratitude for me has led to me having a greater appreciation for quality.

It can guide you to make better, more aligned purchases in the future. And when you're grateful for what you have, new purchases do become more intentional. You're more likely to add things that genuinely enhance your wardrobe and align with your style vision. And to me, gratitude helps me to balance contentment with growth. I think you can have both because it's not about settling or stagnating, it's about finding joy in what you have while opening up the space for positive change. Also, with this comes reframing your wants because I think a lot of times we build our wardrobes from a place of lack. I'm not good enough. I don't look good enough. And so we're always trying to grow from a place of lack. So when I'm in a place of gratitude, what it does is it helps me to add new items to my wardrobe to complement what I already have. It sounds like a subtle shift, but its impact is huge. So often we're focused on what I don't have, what I'm lacking, what's missing, and I like to think about what am I going to add that's going to compliment what I already have?

The other point with gratitude is I want us all to see our style as a journey. It's not a destination. I do think we have this idea of one day I'm going to have it all figured out and my closet is going to be perfect. And that's just not the reality because you're going to grow. I have grown so much with my style. The things that I thought I should want, I no longer want. It's just not important to me. It's shifted. It's changed. And so it's not a destination that we arrive at. It is an ongoing journey, and I'm so happy for it.

It means I'm always going to be learning. I'm always going to be growing. I'll never be bored with my style. It is going to evolve. But gratitude can help us enjoy the process of evolving our style. Gratitude can also help you avoid comparison because especially with social media, I know the temptation to look at other people's wardrobes and think, oh my God, if only if only I could wear that. If only I had that. And you start to feel really negative because you're always looking outside and comparing your life to what other people have. Bring that home. Bring it back to yourself. Don't outsource your joy. When you are in a state of gratitude, there is no space for comparison. You're like, "I am so happy for what I have." And then you can appreciate and be inspired by other people but there's not that comparison energy that makes you feel awful.

When you really make a commitment, a style habit of appreciating what you have, it is going to change your relationship with your closet, your relationship with your style, and most importantly, the relationship you have with yourself. When I put on clothing, it is like a sacred experience. In fact, as I was packing up my closet, I came across this cashmere sweater that I bought in Paris probably eight years ago. It's been a while. And to this day, it is my favorite sweater that I've ever owned. And I remember when I purchased this. I could not believe how much money I was paying for this sweater. I had a lot of drama around it. But looking back now, it was worth every penny. I have gotten so much wear out of this sweater. And as I was looking at it, I just had so much gratitude for my courage to invest in a sweater like this. But also it took me back to the store where I bought this sweater. It took me back to the day. I remember the exact day. I remember where I went to lunch. I remember who I was with, and it was just this beautiful moment. It was about so much more than the sweater. It was just about the whole experience.

But then I started to think about all of the times that I've worn the sweater. In fact, I was thinking about when I lived in that little cabin in Colorado, and it would be so cold outside. Seriously, snow would be above the windows and that was my go-to sweater. I would put her on and she would keep me so warm all day long. I had a moment with my sweater of just immense gratitude for our journey together, and she's still hanging in there. She still looks good. She's still warm. I have taken such a good care of this sweater. But it's these moments that just make me so grateful for what I already have.

Listen, I am your biggest advocate in you wanting whatever you want. But we often equate more stuff with more success, more joy, more happiness, and we need to reverse engineer it. We need to create that feeling of joy, success, happiness. Whatever it is that you're wanting more of. It's not found in stuffing your life with more things. It's found as a foundation of appreciating what you already have. And this may be my most important style habit that's had a positive impact on my life than any of the others. It's allowed me to be more intentional with my shopping, to have a healthy relationship with my closet, and to create that joy, that deep joie de vivre that comes from within. And then I just get to express that through my actions, my behaviors, and yes, what I wear.

So that, my friends, are the five style habits that have elevated my life. There are others, but these are five big ones. Intentional shopping with a style vision, taking daily outfit photos, having a quarterly or seasonal closet edit, keeping everything in sight and practicing gratitude for my wardrobe. They've saved me time, money, and energy, and they've boosted my confidence and helped me to feel more authentically myself. But here's the thing. These habits are just the beginning. There's so much more to explore when it comes to elevating your style and by extension your self-image. And that's why I would love for you to join us within the membership for the month of August if this is something that you want to focus on. We are going to be diving deep into elevating our style habits. So if this has resonated with you and you want to take it to the next level, come join us. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/join. We are opening enrollment for 48 hours only, so come and join us and let's elevate our style habits together. I hope you all have a beautiful, beautiful day, and I will see you on the next episode. Cheers.

Before we part ways, I have an exciting invitation for you. If you have been desiring to elevate your style, but find yourself stuck, unsure, or overwhelmed, I've created something very special just for you. Join me for a private 12-week podcast series called Why Don't You. Where we're going to dive deep into personal style confidence and self-expression. It is an intimate journey designed for the discerning woman who knows she's capable of more, but needs that extra guidance and inspiration. And just so you know, this isn't about fleeting trends or rules. It's about discovering and embracing your unique style story. So to access this private series, all you need to do is go to schoolofselfimage.com/why and secure your spot. And remember, true style is timeless and it starts with you. Why don't you join us and unveil the most stylish version of yourself?

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Listen to the Full Episode:Challenging the Status Quo: The Power of Asking Why

One of the key themes discussed in the podcast episode is the importance of challenging the status quo by asking why and questioning what we have accepted as normal. Tonya Leigh emphasizes the significance of questioning the beliefs and norms that have been ingrained in us without critical examination.

Tonya shares a personal anecdote from her childhood where she questioned the teachings in Sunday school, demonstrating her early inclination to challenge the status quo. She highlights how questioning the norms around her led her to develop a mindset of curiosity and critical thinking, which ultimately shaped her ability to challenge societal norms and expectations.

Join her at the School of Self-Image where personal development meets style, and learn how the audacity to ask can open unexpected doors in your life and career.

Episode Details:01:00 - Gratitude Amidst Chaos

02:31 - Childhood Memories and Aspirations

04:17 - The Power of Asking: Transforming Lives

06:00 - Questioning Societal Rules and Norms

09:53 - Questioning Religious Teachings

10:12 - Fighting for Possibilities: How Can I?

12:27 - The Importance of Quality Questions

14:45 - Shifting Focus: From Limitations to Possibilities

16:08 - Overcoming Self-Sufficiency and Asking for Help

18:29 - The Role of Rejection in Asking

20:36 - Observing Others: The Power of Asking

23:02 - The ATM Machine Analogy

24:11 - Expansive Energy: The Audacity to Ask and Receive

25:09 - Invitation to Join the Private Podcast Series

Useful Resources:* 12-Week Private Podcast Series: https://schoolofselfimage.com/why/ * FREE training: https://schoolofselfimage.com/after/ * FREE download: https://schoolofselfimage.com/self-image-manifesto/ * Sign up for the weekly Edit: https://schoolofselfimage.com/edit/

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello, my dear friends. How are you? I hope as you're listening to this that you are feeling great. I hope you are enjoying your day. I am feeling very happy today and it's a bit confusing because my schedule is packed and my house is in complete mayhem because we keep getting delayed into moving into our home. We're having a few setbacks, and yet I am just completely happy and so grateful. I went over to our house yesterday and I was walking through and had a moment, one of those moments where I got a little teary and I thought to myself, "Wow, how did you end up here?" And what's really crazy about where we are building is I remember as a little girl, I used to come to Charlotte with my mom. There was a store called Mary Joe's Fabric, I think that's the name of it. And my mom would often make my clothes. And so we would drive to Charlotte. It was like a big city outing for a country girl.

And I remember going by South Park Mall and that whole area thinking, "Wow, I wonder what people's lives are here. I wonder what these people do." And it felt so out of reach for a girl like me. I mean, I was driving back home to a trailer, and so it was just one of those things that felt like a fantasy that wasn't possible for a girl like me. And now I'm building a house in that exact neighborhood. And yesterday, I'll tell you, I just had a moment of thinking, "Wow, look at you." And giving myself the space to be completely grateful, to be completely in awe, to be proud of myself, and to just enjoy that moment because oftentimes we create successes, we reach our goals, and we don't even take the time to take it in until we're off to the races to the next one. And yesterday, I just wanted to be in the moment and spend some time thinking about how I got here.

And one of the things that occurred to me as I was standing there is that I believe one of the reasons why I've been able to create the life that I'm living now, and I also see this quality in my clients, the clients who are reaching their extraordinary goals, the clients who are improving their lives by improving their self-image. They all have this in common. They have the audacity to ask, and I want to talk about what that looks like because oftentimes we just accept. We accept what's handed to us, we accept what we've been told, we accept things as they are, and we never question it. And then we wake up in these lives that we're not happy with and we think, "What went wrong?" And I will tell you all. If you have the audacity to ask, your life will begin to change in the most beautiful of ways. It's one of the reasons why I'm hosting a private podcast called 'Why Don't You?' Have y'all joined yet? If not, what in the world? It is so fun. I've recorded the first few episodes, I've loved recording them.

And this podcast series was inspired by Diana Vreeland's iconic column called Why Don't You? And she would offer these outrageous and extravagant suggestions usually related around style and your home. But it caused me to question, why don't we do certain things and why do we do certain things? By the way, if you want to really focus on your style, you are going to love this podcast. Make sure you sign up for it. It's absolutely free. It's 12 episodes. You can go to school of self-image.com/why and go ahead and start listening. Love to have you join us for the private podcast. But that column really just got me to thinking about why we do certain things, why we don't, why certain things are acceptable, why they aren't, and these are all just rules that other people wrote for us. And oftentimes we accept them as if that is the truth of how things should be and who we should be. Think about some of the rules that you have been following without questioning, without asking why, and if it serves you.

Some of us have been told that to be a good person, we need to put everyone else's needs above our own. We've been told that success means having it all, the perfect career, the perfect body, the perfect family, and you can see how that can create a lot of stress in your life. Have you ever questioned, what does success look like for me? If I could tune out all of the noise of the world and really just tap into what brings me joy, what delights me, what I love doing, how I love spending my time, and take off all of these unrealistic expectations, what would success look like for me? Maybe you've been living by the rule of don't ask for a promotion, just wait to be recognized, and that can often lead to you being overlooked for opportunities. Maybe you have been following the rule of apologize frequently to avoid seeming aggressive, or don't show emotion in the workplace, or don't brag about your accomplishments. We have all of these rules and we often don't even stop and wonder why and what is the impact of living by these rules.

So for today's episode, I want to talk about this in three different categories because as I was standing in my house thinking about my audacity to ask, there were three main categories that came up for me. So the first one is asking why. And what I mean by this is challenging the status quo. I want you to think about what you have accepted as normal that you feel like your soul is trying to outgrow. Or maybe you're just trying to reconcile it within yourself because there's a part of you that doesn't want that for yourself. For example, let's say that you have accepted that as a woman who is married, that you should want kids, but when you get really still with yourself and you get in a quiet room and you're really honest with yourself, you don't want children, but you know that not wanting kids may challenge the status quo. Listen ladies, we have to be honest with ourselves. We have to be true to ourselves because if we aren't, we're going to end up living a very soul sucking life, and it really feels like that.

It feels like the life is being sucked out of you because you're trying to fit into these boxes that your particular soul was not made for. I remember this as a little girl. Growing up in a super strict religious household and going to Sunday school, I was always asking why. There were so many things that just did not make sense to me, and the adults around me did not like my questioning. And that's the thing, when you start questioning the status quo, there will be people who are very uncomfortable with it. And this is when you have to do a lot of your own personal development work and make your comfort more important than trying to make everybody else around you comfortable. But yeah, as a little girl, I remember one question that I would ask is, okay, Jesus turned the water into wine, but we aren't allowed to drink wine. It made no sense to me. And of course the adults tried to give me all of these reasons why it was different, it wasn't fermented.

I was like, "Does it say that? I don't understand because nowhere in the Bible does it say it was not fermented, it called it wine. And the last time I checked, wine is fermented. So I need a different explanation." I couldn't justify it in my head. And so even from a very young age, I've always bucked up against the status quo if it didn't make sense to me. And I'm sure there are things in your life that don't make sense to you, but you've just been following it without questioning it, just accepting it as this is the way it is. Maybe it's around money, maybe you've been told your whole life that women like you only make a certain amount of money. Really? Why? Why is that so? And who's telling you this? And what's their agenda? We have to ask those deeper questions. I want you to think about a belief that you have held onto that might not actually be true. Question it. Question it for you. And this leads me to the second point of the audacity to ask. I want you to ask questions that fight for your possibilities, not your limitations.

I was just coaching a member in the school of self-image, and every time I would try to pull her out of her story, she would want to tell me why, why it is the way it is and why she can't do it and why it won't work for her. And I see this over and over. I'm like, what if you trained your brain to fight more for your possibility than for your limitation? And the way to do this is to trade in I can't to, how can I? I can't start my own business turns into, how can I? I can't lose weight turns into, how can I? I can't get organized turns into, how can I get organized? If you spend all of your time focused on why you can't do something, that will be your experience because your brain is looking for all of the reasons why you can't do it. And it's not that you can't, it's because you're not looking in the direction of what you want. Energy is everything, my friends, everything. Where your attention goes is where your energy is flowing.

So if your attention is always on why you can't do something, why it's so hard, how you failed in the past, just notice where your energy is flowing. It's flowing to the very thing you don't want. If you want to have the audacity to ask of more of your life, you need to turn your attention to your possibilities. How can you do it? Why can you do it? Why are you the perfect person to do it? And you need to begin to collect evidence for that. Listen, I saw this so clear yesterday, standing in my house. It was like a vision. As I was standing there, I was like, this house is a result of where I've placed my energy. I have been placing my energy in the direction of the future I wanted for a long time. And listen, don't think for a minute that my brain doesn't want to focus on all the reasons why I can't do it, why I'm failing, why I'm not good enough. My brain loves to go there, but I just don't let it. I'm like, listen, we got to refocus.

Focus on what you want to see, what you want to believe, how you want to show up, what you want to experience. What you focus on grows. And so part of this audacity to ask is for you to ask the questions that will serve you. One of the concepts that I teach is called quality questions. Your life is a result of your questions because your brain will answer any question that you ask of it. So if you sit around and you ask yourself, why is this so hard? Why can't I get it together? Why am I overweight? Why does no one like me? Why is my life so hard? Your brain's going to be like, "Let's sit down and I'll tell you all of the reasons." But do you know what else your brain can do? It can also tell you all of the reasons why you're beautiful, why you're capable. It can show you how your life is actually good right now. It can show you your blessings. It can show you all of your strengths. It can show you next steps. But if you're not asking the right questions, you won't be able to access that data.

Think about the questions that you subconsciously are asking yourself all of the time, and the effect of those questions on your life. You will know the quality of your questions based on the answers that it gives you and how they make you feel. If you are asking yourself low quality questions, you're going to get low quality answers and it's going to create low quality actions. So for example, why am I so overweight? Well, because you're lazy. And when you're thinking you're lazy, what do you do? Probably lazy actions, sitting around, not going for walks, not doing the things that will give you energy and prove to yourself, "I'm not lazy. I can lose weight. I'm going to figure this out. I'm going to learn how to take great care of myself. I'm going to enjoy my life today and I'm going to celebrate myself." And now all of a sudden your energy is flowing towards the future that you want. And that really is how I see it, and every moment wherever you're placing your attention, that is either flowing your energy towards more of what you want or more of what you don't want.

So have the audacity to ask the questions that fight for your possibilities, that show you more of what you want to see about yourself and your life because in any moment, there's evidence for all of it. What are you seeking evidence for? And then the final thing that I want you to have the audacity to ask for is the audacity to ask for what you want. This is a hard one for a lot of us. Why? Because we don't want to inconvenience people. We don't want to be disappointed. We don't want to feel rejection. And so in the meantime, we don't ask, and therefore it is not given. And I'll admit, this has been a hard one for me because I was raised to be very self-sufficient. I watched my mother, typical southern woman who's very strong, and she would rather sacrifice herself than to ask anyone to help her. And I took that on. For years I thought, if you're strong, if you're capable, if you're self-reliant, you don't ask people for help.

You don't ask for what you want, you just go out there and make it happen. And so I bulldozed my way through life, and yeah, I made some things happen, but it was hard. It was way harder than it needed to be. And so I started to think about, if you are a woman who is very comfortable with support, if you love being supported, if you're not afraid to ask, how do you need to think and believe? And I realized that I needed to create the beliefs of, people want to help. People want to see you succeed. People are people encouraging. Now, there's evidence for all of it, but as I was saying in the previous point, your brain will deliver to you what you're looking for. And previously, I had looked for all of the reasons why I shouldn't ask and why I shouldn't be supported, and therefore that's all I could see. But when I started to try on these thoughts, I will tell you, they felt good, and I practiced living into them, and it turns out it's true. I now ask all of the time.

I ask for help, I ask for what I want. Sometimes people say no, and that's where you need to become a woman who's okay with rejection. You don't have to make it mean something's wrong with you. You just can make it mean, hey, they don't want to do this thing that I asked them to do, and that's okay. Maybe it's not a good fit, maybe it doesn't work for their timeline, whatever. But that's the thing, we turn rejection into this personal attack, and I just don't see it that way. I tell people no all the time. It doesn't mean I don't love them, it doesn't mean I don't care about them, it just means it's not a good fit for where I am in my life right now. And my hope is that they don't stop at me, that they continue to ask. So many rejections often need to happen for you get to get that yes, but so many people are so afraid of rejections that they don't give themselves a fighting chance of getting to the yes. Sometimes they don't even experience the first rejection because they're so afraid of it.

What if you turn rejection into play? Into fun? What if you didn't make it mean anything about you but realize, oh, this is just all a part of the game, the game of life. We're not always a good fit for people, it's not always a good time, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't ask, ask for what I want. And you may be pleasantly surprised. I remember years ago I was at a mastermind event with some other colleagues. We were in Santa Barbara and we were at this beautiful restaurant, and I cannot remember, for the life of me, what we were talking about, but this topic came up, something around this, and I said, "I want to just ask the waiter for something ridiculous and see what happens." And I think, if I remember correctly, I asked him for a free bottle of wine. I was just curious if maybe he would do it. Well, it turns out he couldn't give us a free bottle of wine, but he was so fun.

I do remember he had such a fun spirit and he was like, "I can't give you that, but I can give you some other things." And I do remember he gave me a wine opener and he gave me one other thing, and I can't remember what it was, but I got something. I didn't get what I ultimately asked for, but I got something. And sometimes that's what happens. Maybe you don't get what you're asking for, but you get a little something. Maybe you don't get anything at all, or maybe you get something better than what you were asking for. I have seen the audacity to ask beautifully demonstrated by my man. He asks for things he wants all of the time without apology, without embarrassment, none of it. If he wants something, he will ask people for it. And it's been so fascinating to watch because 90% of the time, people say yes, and I'm always perplexed. I'm like, "I cannot believe they just did that for you. I can't believe that you got that."

Now, what's interesting about this, he's also one of the most giving people I know, and I've been thinking about, is there a correlation? The more willing you are to ask for what you want, are you also more willing to give without any kind of resentment? He just loves helping people, he loves giving to people, but he also equally loves asking people for support, for things. And what's really beautiful in watching him is he's so unaffected by the outcome. He's so unbothered. If someone tells him no, he could care less. If someone says yes, he's grateful, but it's just sort of his way of being in the world. I asked him about this a while back, just where that came from and what's underneath it all, and he was like, "We all have free will. And I'm not forcing people to do things, I'm just asking, and they can say yes or no, and I get to do the same." But it seems to me, what I've observed is that the more he asks and it is given, the more he wants to give. It's just like that energy just keeps growing in his life.

This giving energy that's just reciprocal, it's so beautiful to watch. And it all comes down to his audacity to ask. And there is a strong correlation between the ability to give and receive. First of all, it creates this psychological balance. Think about it, those who are comfortable giving, who are giving from abundance, who are giving from just pure love, not this giving because I want you to like me or I don't want you to be upset with me. That's a different kind of giving. That's a selfish giving. But this is just that beautiful, abundant giving spirit. They tend to be more open to receiving, and it creates this balance, this healthy self-esteem of understanding mutual support. Also, there's an understanding of your value. People who recognize the value and what they give are often more able to appreciate and accept what others offer them. It also comes down to self-worth because those who feel worthy of receiving are often more generous in giving and vice versa. And then there's the practice of boundaries. Having clear boundaries allows for healthy, abundant giving and receiving without feeling depleted or taken advantage of.

So I want you to think of it like this. I want you to see you as an ATM machine. And if you're always just giving, if you're always just taking money out of the machine, you are going broke. You are depleted. When you allow yourself to be supported, when you ask for what you want, when you allow others to help you, you are making deposits into your ATM machine. And those deposits, that life giving energy is something that you already know that you are going to pass on. You're going to give it to someone else, which is why I love feeling supported now. This has been one of the big beliefs that I have created in my life, is that the more I allow myself to be supported, the more I have the audacity to ask, the more I have to give. Think about it. If you have the audacity to ask your boss for a raise, and you're pleasantly surprised when you get it, now you have more to give to your family, to your community.

If you have the audacity to ask your neighbor to watch your kids for an afternoon, all of a sudden you get to go out and maybe do something that brings you delight and you're going to come home and have so much more attention and energy to give your kids. And equally, I hope your neighbor is asking for what they need so that they have the energy to come and help you. Can you see how this is just expansive energy? This audacity to ask also equals the audacity to receive. They go hand in hand. So what's been holding you back from asking for what you want? Because I will tell you, a beautiful life requires you to create that audacity to ask, to ask those questions that challenge the status quo, to ask the questions that fight for your possibility, not your limitations, and also the audacity to ask for what you want. Now I'm going to ask you something. Why don't you come and join us for this private podcast series called 'Why Don't You?' where we are going to challenge some of the fashion rules and help you discover your true, authentic style. All you have to do is go to schoolofselfimage.com/why and I look forward to seeing you in the next episode. Cheers.

Before we part ways, I have an exciting invitation for you. If you have been desiring to elevate your style, but find yourself stuck, unsure, or overwhelmed, I've created something very special just for you. Join me for a private 12 week podcast series called 'Why Don't You?' where we're going to dive deep into personal style, confidence and self-expression. It is an intimate journey designed for the discerning woman who knows she's capable of more, but needs that extra guidance and inspiration. And just so you know, this isn't about fleeting trends or rules, it's about discovering and embracing your unique style story. So to access this private series, all you need to do is go to schoolofself image.com/why and secure your spot. And remember, true style is timeless and it starts with you. Why don't you join us and unveil the most stylish version of yourself?

Enjoy the Show? Don't miss another episode!Pick your favorite platform below:The Self-Image Manifesto

You’re Invited To Live An Extraordinary Life!

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Can you believe it’s already mid-July?

As I sit here, sipping my morning coffee from my favorite mug, I can’t help but smile thinking about our recent School of Self-Image focus: Design your Dream Summer.

I’ve decided to embrace what I’m calling my “Summer of Style.”

But here’s the twist – I’m not just talking about updating my wardrobe (though I may have treated myself to a few new sundresses).

No, this summer is about infusing style into every aspect of my life.

It’s about how I artfully arrange fresh flowers in my living room, how I compose an email, and how I present a simple cheese board for impromptu gatherings with friends.

I’m challenging myself to be more intentional in how I show up.

Whether choosing the perfect accessory to complement my outfit or selecting just the right words to express my thoughts, I’m embracing style as a form of self-expression.

So, get ready because I’m serving up style this summer.

Would you like to go on this journey with me?

Then join me for a private podcast series called Why Don’t You – a 12-part trés chic adventure – inspired by the iconic Diana Vreeland.

This free and private series will be filled with stylish challenges and artful mindset shifts designed for your own style renaissance.

Saunter on over and sign up for our private Why Don’t You podcast and let’s make this a stylishly unforgettable summer.

I mean, why don’t you?

Stylishly yours,

Questioning Your “Fashion Rules”“Fashion is what you’re offered four times a year by designers.

And style is what you choose.”

~ Lauren Hutton

Style is a personal choice, not just following the latest trends. It’s about curating a look that truly represents you, regardless of what’s currently “in fashion.”

This week, challenge yourself to choose a style based on what you love, not what you think you should wear. It could be mixing unexpected colors, reviving a “dated” piece you adore, or trying a silhouette you’ve always admired but never dared to wear.

Reflect on how this intentional choice makes you feel. Notice how expressing your authentic style can boost your confidence and influence other areas of your life.

Retro Aviator SunglassesNo summer is complete without sunglasses. The Retro Aviator Sunglasses are a testament that style doesn’t need to cost a fortune.

These chic shades blend vintage charm with a modern edge, much like my summer style philosophy. They remind me that true style is about blending the classic with the contemporary, the expected with the surprising.

Whether lounging by the pool or strolling through the farmer’s market, these aviators add instant cool to your look.

Purchase The Everywhere BagSummer of Style (& Why it Matters)This is my Summer of Style. But it’s about so much more than just clothes. It’s how I express myself through everything I do – the artful choices that create my experience of the world.

In this week’s podcast, I’m sharing how embracing style has transformed not just my wardrobe but my confidence and approach to life.

We’ll explore how intentionally cultivating style impacts everything from your career to your relationships. I’ll also offer practical tips for infusing more style into your daily life.

Whether you’re a fashion enthusiast or someone who’s always felt intimidated by style, this episode is about empowering you to express your authentic self through your personal aesthetic.

Listen to The Podcast// TheEDIT

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This week has been a whirlwind of emotions and cardboard boxes.

As I prepare for my big move, I’ve found myself lost in a sea of memories, unearthing long-forgotten treasures and facing difficult decisions about what stays and what goes.

Yesterday, I came across my old high school yearbook. As I flipped through its pages, I was struck by how much has changed – and how much hasn’t.

It made me wonder: how much of our past do we really need to carry into our future?

Packing has become a metaphor for my life.

Each item I wrap represents a choice – a decision to hold onto a piece of who I was or to make room for who I’m becoming.

It’s bittersweet, letting go of things I once thought were essential.

But it’s also liberating.

I’m excited to share more about this journey with you in this week’s podcast episode.

As I close the door on my cute little townhome, I’m not just changing my address – I’m opening a new chapter.

And I can’t wait to see what stories it holds.

Until next time,

P.S. What’s the one item you’d never leave behind in a move? Head to my Instagram and share your thoughts with me – I’d love to hear from you!

Letting Go as an Opportunity for Growth“Holding on is believing that there’s only a past;

letting go is knowing that there’s a future.”

~ Daphne Rose Kingma

Letting go creates space for growth and new experiences. By releasing what no longer serves you – whether possessions, beliefs, or relationships – you open doors to fresh opportunities and begin curating the life you desire.

This week, identify one area of your life where you’re holding onto something that no longer serves you. It could be a physical item, a habit, or even a limiting belief.

Reflect on why you’ve been holding on, and then challenge yourself to let it go. Notice the physical and emotional space this creates for something new in your life.

The Everywhere BagAs I pack up my townhome, one item stands out: The Everywhere Bag. This versatile bag isn’t just luggage – to me, it symbolizes life’s exciting transitions.

With a spacious main compartment and full wraparound zip, The Everywhere Bag has room for essentials, plus plenty of space for new experiences.

Whether you’re literally moving to a new home or metaphorically stepping into a new chapter of life, The Everywhere Bag is a perfect companion, as well as a statement that you’re ready for whatever comes next.

Purchase The Everywhere BagPacking Up and Moving OnJoin me on my moving journey as I unpack the mix of excitement, nostalgia, and anxiety that often come with significant changes. I’ll share my personal stories and reflect on the art of letting go and the challenge of deciding what to keep.

We’ll also discuss how clearing out the old makes room for fresh starts and new adventures. Whether you’re planning a move, considering a career shift, or simply feeling stuck, this episode is all about embracing the power of moving on.

Listen to The Podcast// TheEDIT

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Listen to the Full Episode:Failing Forward: Lessons in Style and Business

Failure is often viewed negatively, but in this episode, Carmin and Sherry Black share with host Tonya Leigh their stories of failure and how they turned it into a stepping stone to success. Carmin explained how her business, Half United, faced a setback due to a manufacturing defect that resulted in a lawsuit. She realized that the failure was not solely due to external factors but also stemmed from her own decisions and priorities.

Similarly, Sherry Black shared her experiences of encountering obstacles and setbacks in her career as an interior and furniture designer. From relocating from Hawaii to Alaska to launching restaurants in Raleigh, Sherry faced various challenges along the way. However, she emphasized the importance of embracing failure and using it as a learning experience.

Both Carmin and Sherry's narratives illustrate the significance of embracing failure as a stepping stone toward success. By acknowledging their mistakes, learning from them, and making necessary adjustments, they were able to evolve, grow, and ultimately achieve their goals. Their stories serve as a reminder that failure is not the end but a valuable opportunity for growth and improvement in future endeavors.

Episode Details:02:45 Stylish careers.

05:15 Childhood fascination with glamorous decor.

09:42 Fashion faux pas anecdote.

14:32 Individuality and self-expression.

18:34 Starting a business with $200.

24:05 Bullets turned into jewelry.

28:39 Overcoming failure and resilience.

30:40 Manufacturing challenges and growth decisions.

38:33 Embracing challenges for growth.

44:25 The impact of personal style.

52:13 Taking risks in business.

59:25 Experience stacking.

01:05 Entrepreneurial mindset and resiliency.

01:16 Signature style preferences.

01:22 Mr. Rogers obsession.

01:23 The value of simplicity.

01:27 Setting daily goals for success.

01:30:58 Imagine possibilities beyond limits.

Useful Resources:* 12-Week Private Podcast Series:https://schoolofselfimage.com/why/ * FREE training: https://schoolofselfimage.com/after/ * FREE download: https://schoolofselfimage.com/self-image-manifesto/ * Sign up for the weekly Edit: http://schoolofselfimage.com/edit/

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You’re Invited To Live An Extraordinary Life!

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Listen to the Full Episode:Unleashing Your Inner Style: My Summer of Self-Expression

Style is not just about clothing and accessories; it is a powerful tool for self-expression that can transform how we experience the world. In the podcast episode, Tonya Leigh discusses how style goes beyond fashion choices and can impact various aspects of our lives. She emphasizes that style is a mindset that can influence how we express ourselves and interact with the world around us.

Tonya Leigh shares her personal journey of how embracing style has changed her life and helped her become more confident and intentional in her self-expression. By paying attention to the details of her style choices, she has been able to rewrite her story and create a more joyful and fulfilling life.

Join Tonya on this journey of self-discovery and learn how style can be a powerful tool for personal growth and transformation.

Episode Details:00:52 - Designing Your Dream Summer

01:46 - How Style Changed My Life

03:01 - A Decade of Study and Exploration

03:23 - Diana Vreeland: Inspiration and Creativity

04:18 - Why Don't You: New Private Podcast Series

06:05 - Joyful Self-Expression

07:20 - Attracting Like-Minded People

08:18 - Dressing with Intention

12:45 - Telling Your Story Through Style

16:26 - Style Evolution and Growth

18:03 - Daily Attention to Details

Useful Resources:* 12-Week Private Podcast Series: https://schoolofselfimage.com/why * FREE training: https://schoolofselfimage.com/after/ * FREE download: https://schoolofselfimage.com/self-image-manifesto/ * Sign up for the weekly Edit: http://schoolofselfimage.com/edit/

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello my friends, welcome back to the podcast. I am so excited about today's episode because we are talking about style, more specifically, I'm calling this my summer of style. Within the School of Self-Image for the month of June, we all designed our dream summers and it was such a fun lesson, and I asked each member to think of their summer as if it were a fashion collection, to really think about what their soul is craving, to think about what they want to experience, what they want to create, and to look at it overall and give it a theme.

This is your summer of what. When I went through the exercise and I saw where my soul is wanting to spend a lot of time, what it's craving, the creativity, the self-expression, I realized that this was going to be my summer of style and I am bringing you all along on this journey with me. Now, if you've been following me for a while and you've listened to this podcast, then you are no stranger to the fact that I love style and I talk about it a lot, specifically how style has changed my life. Learning how to really express myself on purpose, using clothing as a way to see myself differently, even how I style my life. All of these little things have changed me as a woman, and yet I still remember way back in the day being a woman that was so intimidated by style, who didn't know what her style was.

I was one of those who had a closet full of clothes but nothing to wear. Does that sound familiar? Deep down, I wanted to be a stylish woman. I wanted to understand my loves, I wanted to understand my truest self-expression, I wanted to understand my body, I wanted to be able to walk in stores and confidently shop and to have a very well-curated wardrobe, and so those desires sent me on this style adventure, where over the past 10 years I have studied style in depth. I'm not just talking about designers, I'm not just talking about color theory, but what it really means and takes to be a stylish woman. One of the things that it requires is that you question all of your assumptions, that you are willing to break the rules. That brings me to something I am so excited to share.

One of my style icons is Diana Vreeland. She was fashion editor for Harper's Bazaar, and then she went on to become editor-in-chief at Vogue Magazine, and she has a really great documentary called the I Must Travel, I definitely recommend, but she had this really incredible article that ran for almost 30 years in Harper's Bazaar called Why Don't You? She used this article and her platform to really push boundaries and spark creativity and inject a little magic into everyday life and style choices, and that's what I want to do for you all. I want to support you in sparking a little of your style creativity. I want to support you in moving beyond what maybe is holding you back, and so I have decided to create a private podcast called Why Don't You? But instead of suggesting that you wash your blonde child's hair in dead champagne, yes, that was one of Vreeland's suggestions in her column, I want to tackle real world style road blocks that keep you safe and small in your closet.

We are going to be diving into questions like, why don't you wear that special occasion dress? Why don't you dress for the body you have right now? It is going to be such a fun series, there are 12 of them, and if you want to join us, all you have to do is go to schoolofselfimage.com/why, because why don't you join us for this private podcast series. Now, about my summer of style and why I chose this as my theme for the summer and why I believe deeply that style matters is because I'm moving into my new home, and in all of this, I've realized that I have missed the creativity, looking at art, thinking about the scent that I want to be in my home, looking at my clothes.

I've been going through my closet and getting rid of so much and really thinking about what is this next version of me? Would she wear this? Does this belong in her closet? Asking those deeper questions made me realize that I want this entire summer to be about joyful self-expression. I want to be more intentional than I've ever been in how I'm showing up. I want to pay close attention to the details because the details are what makes life so interesting and beautiful. I want to use style to help birth this next version of me. I can't say this for everyone, but I can tell you why style matters to me and why I want to make this my summer of style. First of all, Diana Vreeland had an incredible philosophy as it relates to style, and I strongly agree with her around many things.

One of which is, style is all about individuality. She believes strongly in personal style and encourage people to express their unique personalities through fashion, because when we look at someone across the room, we don't know who they are, we're not having a conversation, but you can tell people who you are without speaking. Someone can look at you and just the way you carry yourself and what you're wearing, and the energy of your self-expression can tell the story of who you are. I believe that when we do that on purpose, when we are intentional and we are expressing our truest self, another thing happens. You begin to form beautiful relationships, because what happens is that you repel people that don't vibe with your energy and you attract the people who do. Let me give you an example. I am very open and unapologetic about my love of style, design, and beautiful things, I have been, throughout the course of my career and business, and because of that, I typically attract women who value the same things.

When we all get together, there's no tension, there's no misunderstanding because I lead with that. What are you leading with? Because what we often do if we're not mindful is, we try to lead to please everyone and we end up being a watered down version of ourselves, we're never able to feel safe and being fully self-expressed. You have to be willing to repel people. I believe that style is one of the ways that we do that. Occasionally, we'll get a woman or two in the membership and they're offended, and I'm like, I don't know why. If you look at my Instagram, if you've listened to any of my podcasts, if you have been around to me, you know this is one part of what I love. It's not the totality of what I love, but I do believe in the power of style to change a woman's life.

By expressing that, by embodying that, I attract the women who are either in alignment with that or they want to be, something within them deep down has a desire to be a more stylish woman. Another reason why style is important and why this is my summer of style is that style does give you a level of self-confidence. When I think about what I am looking at, in terms of projects and my schedule and everything that I have going on, I know my brain is going to tell me you don't have time. You don't have time to do all of this, but in order to feel confident, I need to make the time for really showing up intentionally, not just throwing on any old thing, not just getting through the day, going through the motions, I need to tell my brain, I've got this.

I need to tell my brain this is where we're going, I need to tell my brain I am capable, and when I dress a certain way, it literally drowns out that voice because it doesn't match what my brain is trying to offer me. If I look at myself in the mirror and I've really taken time and put in the effort to look my best, that does not jive with the thought, you're not capable, that doesn't jive with the thought, you don't have time. I'm proving myself wrong in just how I show up. The other reason why style is important and why this is my summer of style, and this very much aligns with Diana Vreeland's philosophy is that style is about fantasy and romance in everyday life. It is so easy you all to get called up in the monotony, in the mundane and the familiar.

Everybody seems to be talking about the same things, living the same ways, doing the same things, and if you're not mindful, you do start to live on autopilot, no creativity, and it starts to wear on your soul because our souls want to feel alive, they want to feel joyful, they want to feel expansive. Well, for me, style is how I create that. There is something beautiful about lighting a candle and smelling that scent in your home every day. There's something that helps me transcend the ordinary by taking the time to put on a beautiful outfit on a regular day. It's not only affecting my self-image and my confidence, it's allowing me to have a better experience of my everyday life. As my experience becomes more expansive, more joyful, that energy impacts everything. How I show up in my relationships, how I show up in my business, how I show up with myself, everything becomes better.

This is why when women come to me and they tell me, you know what? Style really doesn't matter. Does it really matter what you wear? Does it really matter how you keep your home? I've got things to do, I'm raising kids, I am building a business, I'm working. I've got all of these responsibilities and obligations. I get it, I have many of the same things, and still I know that by focusing on my style, it has made all of those areas of my life so much more fulfilling, meaningful, and better. Another reason why style is so important and why I'm making this my summer of style is that style allows you to create a personal narrative intentionally. Your style choices are telling a story about who you are and who you aspire to be. Style is your visual autobiography. Your choices can be seen as the story that you're telling just through what we see.

Think about it, that vintage dress that you love might speak to your appreciation of history. That collection of travel souvenirs may showcase your adventurous spirit. It also tells your values and beliefs, the brands you choose to support, the materials that you prefer, and even the way you mix high-end and thrifted items can reflect your values and beliefs about consumption, sustainability, and social responsibility. It also tells your personal history. As I've been looking at my house and designing my house, I'm thinking about those items that mean so much to me, that tell the story of where I've been, that tell the story of who I've been. Style can also reflect your emotional landscape. You think about color choices, textures, and the overall aesthetic can communicate your emotional world. Someone that is drawn to calming neutrals may have a very different emotional landscape than someone who's really drawn and wears a lot of energizing brights.

I always find it interesting when I'm out and about, especially in an airport, I like to do analysis of people just by what they're wearing, like how they're feeling, what their life may look like, what their career may be. It's like a fun way to try to get an idea of who people are just through how they're presenting themselves to the world. Style can also reflect your interests and passions. Think about someone who loves to wear their favorite rock band t-shirts or art books on their coffee table or sports memorabilia, it all reflects who that person is and what they're interested in and passionate about. That's why I love when I rent homes, especially in Europe, I love to go in and look at their bookshelves because it tells me so much about who they are. It tells me about their travels, it tells me about what they value just by looking at their bookshelf.

Your bookshelf is part of your style, you made a choice, and now that choice is a part of your environment that you have created, and your environment is part of your self-expression. The sheets that you choose for your bed, the candles that you have, the types of plates and silverware that you use, they all tell a story. A lot of women are frustrated, and I get it, I've been there. They're frustrated because they don't feel like the outside world reflects who they truly are, and that is why style is so important. It asks you, it's an invitation for you to deeply get to know yourself and make those intentional choices so that the outside begins to align with the inside and vice versa. Style is important because it also reflects your evolution and growth. How your style changes over time, tells the story of your journey as a woman.

The ability to look back and see how your style has changed can be so powerful. For me, I look back in my twenties, not only in what I was wearing but what I was choosing for my home, and it is completely different than today's choices. Why? Because I have changed, and I think that's a beautiful thing. I love when our styles change. I love when we evolve to the next level and we have to get rid of things because it tells me that we're growing, that we're growing as individuals. The last thing I'm going to share with you as to why this is my summer of style and why it's important is that it allows you to be creative. There's so much personal growth that comes from really accessing the creativity that is within all of us. Whenever someone tells me they're not creative, I just know they have a lot of limiting beliefs about their creative abilities, because we are all creative.

We're creating every single day. Exploring style pushes you to be more creative and to learn so much about yourself along the way. For me, this summer, it is about being very intentional with the choices of my own self-expression, in my home, in my relationships, in my dress, in my business, all of it. I am so excited to get back to that creativity, to that [foreign language 00:18:19], to that romance and daily attention to details. Perhaps that last point is the most important because I have found that if we're not mindful, we can get so caught up in the big goals. You know I love a big goal, but hear me out, we can get caught up in it, and we're constantly focused there, not understanding that the big goals are achieved by the small daily intentional choices, the details of your life. The details are what makes life so delicious, so fulfilling.

Those details add up to create your experience of life. I've said many times, a well-lived life is nothing more than a collection of well-lived days, and I believe that well-lived days are a collection of the little details. That's what I'm going to be focused on this summer, the details of my style, all summer long, and if you want to come along on this adventure with me, I would love to have you. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/why and join me for this private podcast called, Why Don't You? I want you to know that my summer of style in this podcast is not about following trends or spending a fortune, it is about being mindful and intentional with how we express ourselves in our lives.

It's about finding joy in the details and letting our truest selves shine through in everything that we do, so if you want to make this a summer of joyful, self-expression, creativity, and love, let's explore how being intentional with our style can transform, not just our wardrobes, but our lives, so why don't you head over to schoolofselfimage.com/why, and join us for this 12 part private podcast series where I'm going to be challenging all of your style assumptions so that you can live your life joyfully, self-expressed. Have a beautiful, beautiful week, my friends. Cheers.

I used to think happiness was a fairy tale, forever just out of reach. I felt stuck a lot of the times, helpless and like I was constantly failing at life, but then I discovered a simple shift or three, that changed everything. Now, I help women like you create their own powerfully ever after. In my free masterclass, you'll learn the secrets to unshakable desire, fearless action, and finally believing in yourself. You deserve a life you love, so stop waiting and start creating. Watch the masterclass and unleash your inner powerhouse. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/after and watch it now.

Enjoy the Show? Don't miss another episode!Pick your favorite platform below:The Self-Image Manifesto

You’re Invited To Live An Extraordinary Life!

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Do you love a good rom-com as much as I do?

There’s just something about that movie genre that always reminds me of life’s joys and possibilities.

Now let me ask you: what if you prioritized infusing some of that magic into your everyday life?

Embracing pleasure not only brings joy but can also lead to better health, a thriving career, and a more youthful look and feel.

Studies show that prioritizing pleasure can reduce stress and improve well-being.

In fact, according to a survey by the American Psychological Association, 75% of adults reported experiencing moderate to high stress levels, with women being more likely to report higher levels.

Now, imagine how dramatically your life could shift if you prioritized pleasure in your daily life – especially as a woman who often puts her own needs last.

Days brimming with joy, sensuality, and unapologetic pleasure? Yes, please!

This is why we’re focusing on Creating Your Pleasure Portfolio within the School of Self-Image next month.

To give you some ideas, here’s a glimpse of how I turn my ordinary days into unforgettable, rom-com-style experiences:

Seize the Moment: Life is full of unexpected twists, and I embrace the spontaneity. Whether it’s saying “yes” to a last-minute dinner invite or taking a walk in the rain, I seize opportunities to create memories.
Embrace the Quirks: I celebrate my uniqueness and find joy in the little quirks that make me who I am.
Set the Scene: Just like in the movies, setting the scene is key to creating pleasurable days. I fill my space with flickering candles and my favorite feel-good tunes, and I dress the part in outfits that make me feel like a leading lady.
Spread the Love: Love can brighten even the dullest days. I spread love wherever I go through acts of kindness, heartfelt gestures, or simply sharing a smile.
Find Your Sidekick: I surround myself with people who lift me up, support me, and add a little extra sparkle to life. Fonz is the best supporting actor ;).
Embrace the Ups and Downs: I embrace the highs and lows, knowing that each experience adds depth to my personal storyline.

Are you ready to elevate your every day with audacious pleasure?

We are opening the doors to the School of Self-Image for 48 hours only.

During the month of July, you’ll:

✨ Discover how to prioritize happiness & explore new avenues of pleasure

✨ Create a personal pleasure portfolio that will leave you feeling inspired

✨ Learn life-changing practices to reduce stress & find more joy

And that’s just the beginning. The School of Self-Image is where women master the art of joyful reinvention and discover the keys to living the life of their dreams.

Ready to unlock a world of pleasure and possibility?

Enroll in the School of Self-Image today, and let’s Create Your Pleasure Portfolio together.

With a romantic heart,

The Magic in the Romance“We all need a little bit of romance in our lives. A little bit of magic. You shouldn’t trust all of the stories, but you should believe some.”

~ Bec McMaster

Romance isn’t just about grand gestures and fairy tale endings. It’s about finding magic in the everyday moments, embracing the enchantment that life has to offer. When we infuse our lives with a touch of romance, we open ourselves up to a world of wonder and possibility. We start to see the extraordinary in the ordinary and become the main characters in our own captivating story.

So, how can you bring more romance into your daily life?

Start by savoring the little things – the warmth of a cup of coffee, the beauty of a sunset, the laughter of a loved one. Dress up for yourself, create a cozy atmosphere in your home, and indulge in activities that make you feel alive. Write love letters to yourself, dance in the rain, and let your imagination run wild.

Most importantly, believe in the magic of your own story. Trust that life has incredible adventures in store for you, and open your heart to the romance that surrounds you every day.

Monette Linen DressYou’ll be poised to star in your own summery rom-com in the enchanting Monette Linen Dress. Crafted from lightweight, 100% linen, this dreamy dress effortlessly floats with your every move.

Picture yourself strolling along a sunlit boardwalk, the full skirt dancing around your legs as you savor the salty ocean air. Or imagine yourself at a garden party, the ethereal fabric catching the light as you laugh and sip champagne amidst blooming flowers. This summer must-have is more than just a dress – the Monette Linen Dress is an invitation to embrace your inner romantic heroine.

Purchase the Linen DressHow to Romanticize Your LifeHave you ever wished your life felt more like a rom-com? In today’s podcast, I’m sharing my secrets for infusing your everyday moments with a touch of magic and romance.

From savoring the little things to embracing your inner main character energy, I’ll guide you through simple yet powerful ways to transform your ordinary days into extraordinary adventures. Whether you’re single, coupled up, or somewhere in between, this episode will inspire you to create your own enchanting love story.

Listen to The Podcast// TheEDIT

A weekly digital magazine by the School of Self-Image

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Listen to the Full Episode:Emotional Residency: Packing Up Your Life for Joyful Reinvention

Assessing what parts of our lives we are ready to leave behind and what we want to bring along as we move forward is a crucial aspect of personal growth and transformation. In a podcast episode, Tonya Leigh discusses the process of packing up her belongings as she prepares to move to a new house. This physical act of packing serves as a metaphor for the emotional and mental process of evaluating what serves us and what no longer aligns with our current goals and values.

She emphasizes the importance of being intentional about what we choose to bring along on our journey. This includes not only physical items but also emotional baggage, old beliefs, and outdated thought patterns. By taking the time to assess these aspects of our lives, we can make conscious decisions about what to let go of and what to hold onto as we move forward.

Join Tonya as she shares her own emotional journey of packing up her current home and moving into a new chapter.

Episode Details:00:30 - Introduction to Packing Up and Moving On

05:30 - Emotional Baggage and Letting Go

10:33 - Sunken Cost Fallacy and Letting Go

15:19 - Packing Up for the Future

18:41 - Moving into a New Chapter

22:47 - Joyful Reinvention through Packing Up and Moving On

Useful Resources:* FREE training: https://schoolofselfimage.com/after/ * FREE download: https://schoolofselfimage.com/self-image-manifesto/ * Sign up for the weekly Edit: http://schoolofselfimage.com/edit

Connect with Master Life Coach Tonya Leigh: Website: https://schoolofselfimage.com * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tonyaleigh * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TonyaLeighOfficial * TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thetonyaleigh * YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TonyaLeighOfficial DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:*I am sitting here in my office surrounded by boxes because I am in the process of packing up all of my things and getting ready to move to my new house. And as I've been going through this process, I realized it's about so much more than just packing up things and moving them to a new location. This has been about me deciding what parts of myself I'm ready to leave behind, what things I'm ready to let go of and equally, what I'm ready to move towards, what parts of myself I'm ready to step into. So that's what this episode is all about. I want us all to think about what we're ready to leave behind, what we want to pack up and move towards the next season of our lives and what we are excited to move towards. So let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, Master Life Coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello, friends, and welcome to another episode of the podcast. Today is a very special one because I am packing up and moving on. That's right, this is probably going to be one of the last few episodes that I record in my current home. And for those of you who are in the membership, you've been seeing a similar background for the last three to four years, this picture, this painting that's behind me. I'm packing it up. I am taking it with me, but it is not going to be my background any longer. Lots of stuff is happening in my life right now, and I didn't expect it to be so emotional.

I'm so excited about this move. It's the first time I've ever owned my own home. We have been building this house for the last 18 months, give or take a month or two, I can't remember exactly when we started, but nevertheless we've been anticipating this move and now it is finally happening. And I've been thinking a lot as I'm packing up boxes and I am visualizing the new house and what life is going to be like in that new house, I've been thinking about you all and the importance of packing up our lives. What I mean by that is as I've been going through the items in my home, I've been very intentional about how they make me feel. I've been very intentional about do I want to bring them along? And if I do, why? I've been taking my time and really thinking through what is around me, my environment, because I talk about this a lot in the membership, but our environment is reflecting stories back to us, and I want to be very intentional about what my environment is saying about me.

I had a moment a couple of weeks ago, I've been tackling room by room and going through things because I don't want to bring anything along with me on this next phase, during this next chapter that isn't purposeful, that isn't intentional. There's a closet right here to my right where I have my filing cabinet and a lot of office stuff and I was going through it and wow, it was so interesting what all came up for me. I have papers in there that I've been dragging around with me for the last... Let's see, Sarah's 26, the last 23 years. I had divorce papers, I had emails, I had things that when I read them, I was like, "Oh my goodness, who was I and who was my ex?" Because we've both grown up. I've been dragging that around. And even though I don't pull it out and read it on a weekly basis, the energy of those papers were in my house and I really questioned why I'd held onto them for so long. I think part of it was fear. Fear of, will I ever need it again? Will I ever need this evidence again? Because like many divorced couples go through, we went through custody and all the stuff that comes with that, and the reality is I haven't needed that for a long time.

So I went through paper by paper, photo by photo, and weeded out all of that old energy and I threw it away. I got rid of it. And let me tell you, it was so liberating. I've been doing this with every corner of my house. I haven't tackled my closet yet, but I walked in this morning because I knew I was preparing for this episode, and I looked around and I thought to myself, there's going to be a lot of stuff that I'm going to let go from my closet because it represented who I was. But even in the last year, I've had such big shifts. I've had some of you reach out to me on Instagram and Facebook saying, "I'm feeling the shift. I can tell you're getting back into your sweet spot." So I am letting go of so many things, and I want you to think about this for you because you don't have to move to a new home, you don't have to move to a new city to stop and say, what am I ready to pack up? What am I ready to move on from?

When it comes to packing up, there are physical things and there's also the emotional baggage. It's the old beliefs, it's your whole framework of how you see the world, and so I want to start with the emotional baggage and how that is displayed in terms of the items around us. Because inevitably when we start packing up physical things, it brings up a lot of emotions. For me, I cried when I was going through my old papers because I saw Mother's Day cards that my daughter wrote me when she was five and six years old and there's a part of me on some level that wishes I could go back and revisit that time and appreciate it more. So I looked at those and I had a moment of realizing that there's regret, there are things that I've been wrestling with. "I wish I would've done this. I wish I would've done that," and I need to move on. I need to let go of that.

I am a firm believer in that we are always doing the best we can with who we are and what we know at that moment, and giving ourselves that grace is so important. And so I cried. I forgave myself for certain things and I said, "You know what, Tonya, it's time to move on. You're a different woman now. And you did the best you could with who you were and what you knew at the time." And I think for all of us, we need to really extend ourselves that grace because it's so easy on the other side to look back and say, "I should have done this and I should have done that." What if you did exactly what you were supposed to do? Now, can you move on from that? Can you forgive yourself? Can you let it go and move on?

When it comes down to the items that I am going through and deciding what comes along and what is left behind, I am asking myself questions like, does this spark a negative emotion within me? Is this tied to negative memories? Now, I could sit around and try to work on my thoughts all day about those things, or I can just let the items go. I can release them.

I also love to think about, does this belong in my future? Another question you can ask is, would I buy this thing again today? And if not, it probably doesn't need to come along for this next chapter. I also love the Marie Kondo question, which is, does this spark joy? Does this belong in my future? Does this excite me? Does this align with my values? Does it represent who I am today? These types of questions are helping me get really clear on what I want to bring along and what I want to leave behind.

So often throughout this process, letting go has been me voting for the woman I'm becoming. And through the process, I have encountered so many emotions. When it comes to letting go of things, some of us encounter what is called sunken cost fallacy, which is basically this cognitive bias that happens when we've invested a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of effort, a lot of energy into something, and yet it no longer serves us and so we might cling to it. It might be a relationship, a career path, or even a physical object because of the investment we've made. But knowing it doesn't serve you, knowing it doesn't belong in your future, I hope will give you the courage to just let it go.

The way I like to think about it is it's just opening up a portal for new things to come in, new opportunities, new people, new ways of being. But a lot of us experience that. I was looking in my closet and I was thinking, "Gosh, I'm going to have to let some of these things go because they don't serve me any longer." But then my brain went to, but do you remember how much you paid for it? And the reality is hanging onto it I think will have a much more negative impact on my life than keeping something, even though it may have cost a lot of money.

So I want you to think about when you're thinking about what you want to pack up and what you want to let go of, how many things are you hanging onto because you have invested a lot of time, a lot of energy, a lot of effort, maybe even a lot of money into it? But deep down, if you listen to your soul you know it doesn't belong in your life. What if by letting that thing go, you are voting for your future and you are opening up a pathway for new things to flow into your life? That's the way I'm choosing to see it, and yet it's still hard. I'm not going to sit here and tell you, "Oh, it's so easy to let things go."

When we have an emotional attachment to something, it is a real feeling and it can bring up a lot. That's why I was so surprised with this process I didn't realize how much courage it was going to take to let some of these things go. But as I've been doing it and experiencing the liberation and the freedom, it's giving me more evidence to want to continue letting go of things that I don't want to bring along into not only this new house, but this new season of my life.

Another thing that I've noticed in deciding what stays and what goes is this thought of scarcity. Have you ever had it where you are wanting to let go of something but then you want to keep it because you're like, "What if I can't get it again? What if I never find a pair of shoes that I love as much as I loved those? Even though these are no longer my style, I remember loving them, and what if I can never find a pair of shoes like that again?" That is such scarcity thinking. And a life built on scarcity creates more scarcity. So I always love to go to what would the most abundant version of me do? Would she hoard this? Would she hang onto it? Or would she let it go trusting that what is meant for her will come to her? So just notice when you're thinking about packing up your life how much you're hanging onto out of scarcity.

The other thing that may come up for you is fear of the unknown. Many times we hang onto things because we know them, they're familiar, even though they don't serve us. And the moment you think about letting go, it's a very scary situation because you don't know what awaits on the other side, especially when it comes to your beliefs, because this whole process isn't just about letting go and packing up physical things. It's about letting go of beliefs that no longer serve you. And sometimes we hang onto beliefs for so long that we really believe that that's who we are and that's how the world works, and we don't know a world without that belief. So letting it go, as liberating as it may seem, is also equally scary because your brain doesn't know what it's like to walk through the world feeling like you are deserving. Your brain doesn't know what it's like to walk through the world believing that you are 100% worthy. Your brain doesn't know what it's like to walk through the world thinking life can be easy because you haven't been thinking that and so you don't yet have the evidence for it. But you have to be willing to let these thoughts and things go in order to birth the next version of you.

So much of this process I can now see is leaving part of my past behind, but it's also about intentionally choosing parts of my past that I want to bring along. If you've been listening to the last few episodes of the podcast, I've been talking a lot about getting back to my sweet spot, I've been talking about my journey over the last couple of years and how I needed to play in different realms to figure out the next version of me. Now I feel like I'm ready to assemble the two. I'm ready to bring the two together, merge them, so to speak. And that means me being very meticulous in what I'm choosing from my past to bring along and what is no longer a fit for my future.

So when I think about this whole concept, what I'm really doing, and I want you to think about this for you, is I'm packing up my future. We get to choose, you all, what we bring along with us on this journey of life. And a lot of people are just dragging those same old stuff with them wherever they go. But in any moment, you get to stop and be like, "Whoa, this load is heavy. I don't like how it feels. It's not leading me to where I want to go." And you get to open up the luggage of life and look at it, and say, "What am I currently carrying that's holding me back, that's weighing me down?" And you can let it go. You can pull it out, leave it outside of the suitcase, and then you get to look around and choose what you want to put in it. It really aligns beautifully with the self-image method.

The self-image method is five steps. First of all, we assess, we open up the suitcase and we're like, "Okay, what's working? What's not working?" And then we define what we want our lives to look like, what we want them to feel like, and who we must become to create that. And then it's an intentional process of what do we need to let go of? What do we need to add? And then the daily practice is refining that over and over again. It just so happens that right now I'm just doing it on a big scale because this is a big momentous time in my life where I'm literally packing up my life and so I'm thinking about it in that way. What do I want to pack for my future? The thoughts that I want to bring along, the ones that I want to leave behind, the things I want to bring along, the things I want to leave behind, even certain relationships that I want to bring along and some that have changed, some that I'm ready to let go of. That's how we need to be thinking about our lives.

The closet I was just telling you about, another thing that came up for me the other day is that I realized I had saved all of my coach certification books from all those years ago, and I realized I was ready to let them go. I realized I was hanging onto them because maybe there was some part of me that was like, "You're not ready yet." I've been doing this for 15 years, obviously I'm ready. I've been coaching myself and others for over 15 years, but subconsciously there was this little thought of like, "But are you good enough, Tonya? Are you really ready for this? You better keep this." And I was like, "Oh no. I know how to coach. I've been doing it every day on myself for over 15 years. I've been coaching others for over 15 years. It is safe to let this go and see what is birthed from that, see what's birthed when you let go and you really just integrate and trust your own wisdom." The tools that you've been creating for yourself for all of these years, let's lean on that and trust that.

So I let those go and I replaced it with my own trust in myself. These are the little things that happen, you all, as you're packing up your life and you're moving. These are the things that happen for us on a day-to-day basis when we're really sitting with ourselves and asking ourselves, what am I ready to leave behind and what am I ready to bring along? And what do I need to add that maybe I don't yet have?

So as I'm thinking about my future in this new house, I'm really thinking about moving on into a new chapter, and I'm thinking about and visualizing who do I want to be in this house?

I've been spending a lot of time journaling. I've been spending a lot of time thinking about my new life because environments have a powerful effect on us. And I believe that when we change our environments, especially drastically, it is an opportunity to step into a whole new way of being. So what's been coming up for me is family connection. I want to start cooking again. There are many things that I currently do that I want to bring along. I feel like I'm very good at curating an environment that makes me feel really happy and good and well, and so playing music, lighting candles, having fresh flowers in the house. I will bring that along with me. But there are new things that actually are from my past that I had let go a long time ago that I'm ready to bring back in.

I'm so excited to cook again. I haven't cooked in years. Vaughn spoils me because he does all the cooking, but I'm ready to get in the kitchen again. One of the things that I'm looking forward to is going to the farmer's market every Saturday and picking out fresh produce. I'm ready to simplify and elevate my wardrobe. I'm ready to slow down.

I was talking to some members at our cocktail party the other night, and they were like, "Where are you traveling to?" And I'm like, "Nowhere. I don't want to go anywhere right now. I just want to be." I told them, I'm like, "I want to nest. I want to just enjoy where I am." Because looking back, I realized that my whole life, I've been on the go. I've been on the move. Now, this isn't to say I'm going to stop traveling because that's not true, I love traveling, but I don't want to travel as much right now during the season of my life.

That's the thing you all, we change. Season to season, when we have kids, our priorities and our values are maybe different than when we become older and our kids are gone and we're like, "Oh, this is a new season with new opportunities." And sometimes I think we can become so rigid in how we think we're supposed to be that we are not open to what our soul truly wants in this season of our lives. And nothing is forever. Just because you say, this is what I want during this season of my life doesn't mean it has to be forever. It's just during the season.

So for me now during the season, I just want to enjoy our home. I want to cook. I'm excited to do laundry. I never thought I would say that, I'm really excited to do laundry. I want to get back to the simple things. I've been reading a lot. I want to read even more. I want to host dinner parties. I want to have game nights. I want to really focus on the business. We've got some big projects coming up, and I'm really excited for the energy that I'm going to have from being in this new space and getting back into my sweet spot.

So when I'm thinking about packing up, I'm also being intentional with what I want to move on to and who I want to move into in terms of my own beingness. And again, you don't have to be packing up your house. You don't have to be moving to do this. It really is just you stopping long enough to say, "Okay, I'm going to do an emotional move. I am moving emotional residency." And getting clear on where you want to move to. So when I think about that, you may have a goal. You may just have, "I want to be this kind of woman. I want to be more calm. I want to be more relaxed." Well, then we need to look around your emotional home and your physical home, and say, "Okay, what beliefs, what behaviors, what physical things are moving me away from that that I need to let go of?"

And then you need to look at your strengths. You need to look at what you currently believe that may be aligned with what you want or close to it. You want to look at the things around you that spark that emotion in you, and you want to put it in your suitcase, pack it up and move on. I believe that packing up and moving on, whether it's metaphorically or it's reality, is one of the most powerful tools for joyful reinvention. And I'm inviting you to do this with me.

I want you to stop and assess your life. Look at what's working, what's not working. Look at what you want to move into. Define it. Get clear on it. And then it's a matter of going through your emotional house, thought by thought, item by item, and being intentional about what you put in your suitcase of life to bring along with you.

Let me tell you, this is an ongoing process. I know when I get in that house, I'm going to have to be doing this work on a daily basis, and that's okay. I don't mind. I know as I often say, when you're done, you're dead. This is our work, my friends. This is what we're here to do. We are here to stay awake. We are here to be intentional. We're here to be joyful. We're here to listen to our soul and what our soul is craving, and then we need to take action on what we deeply, deeply want.

So I'm curious, what are you ready to move to? What are you ready to pack up and bring along with you? And what do you need to let go of? I hope you have a beautiful week, and I will see you in the next episode.

I used to think happiness was a fairy tale, forever just out of reach. I felt stuck a lot of the times, helpless and like I was constantly failing at life. But then I discovered a simple shift, or three, that changed everything. Now I help women like you create their own powerfully ever after. In my free masterclass, you'll learn the secrets to unshakable desire, fearless action, and finally believing in yourself. You deserve a life you love, so stop waiting and start creating. Watch the masterclass and unleash your inner powerhouse. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/after and watch it now.

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Listen to the Full Episode:Creating Magic in Everyday Moments: A Guide to Romanticizing Your Life

Romanticizing your life involves being mindful and appreciating the present moment. Host and Master Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh emphasizes the importance of being present and mindful to romanticize your life in this weeks School of Self-Image podcast. She highlights the significance of slowing down, being with yourself, and appreciating the details of your life. By being fully present in the moment, you can tend to the details of your life and truly appreciate the joyous moments that may otherwise be overlooked.

Tonya also stresses the practice of slowing down and being present with oneself or those around you. By taking the time to truly be present with yourself and others, you can cultivate a deeper sense of appreciation for the blessings in your life. This involves not being distracted by worries about the future or regrets about the past, but rather focusing on the beauty and goodness that the present moment offers.

Tune in to discover how you can infuse your daily life with meaning and enjoy the present moment rather than rushing toward the future.

Episode Details:01:00 - Introduction to Romanticizing Your Life

05:30 - Philosophical Perspectives on Romanticizing Your Life

08:32 - Benefits of Romanticizing Your Life

09:16 - Embracing Adventure in Everyday Situations

11:34 - Importance of Mindfulness in Romanticizing Your Life

17:06 - Morning Routine for Romanticizing Your Life

21:18 - Importance of Self-Appreciation in Romanticizing Your Life

25:38 - Balancing Idealism and Realism in Romanticizing Your Life

29:03 - Finding Joy in Work and Daily Activities

31:31 - Building Meaningful Connections and Appreciating Moments

32:45 - Slowing Down and Being Present in Your Life

Useful Resources:* JOIN the membership: https://schoolofselfimage.com/coaching-collective/ * FREE training: https://schoolofselfimage.com/after/ * FREE download: https://schoolofselfimage.com/self-image-manifesto/ * Sign up for the weekly Edit: http://schoolofselfimage.com/edit/

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello, my beautiful friends. Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. I am sitting in the basement of my friend's house in Telluride, Colorado. The house is full of people, and so I've been working in my bedroom all morning and taking moments throughout the day to go on a walk around the block to really take it in because this place is breathtakingly beautiful. Summers in Colorado are just magical. I don't think the sky could be any bluer, the air, any fresher, and just the temperature any more perfect than what it is right now. I was on my walk this morning and I was thinking about my life as I often do, especially before I'm about to do a podcast. I like to reflect on my journey and share things that I have noticed that have made such a big difference in my life. And today's topic is one of those.

Today we are talking about how to romanticize your life, and if you have any resistance to this, this is for you. I have so many people, especially clients when we start working together, they're like, hurry up and help me get there. And that pressure, that hurriedness keeps you from being there because when I talk to people about their future selves, when I talk to them about their vision for their lives, there's always a touch of romance involved. And romance is not something that you have to wait until one day to have. In fact, to create a romantic life, it requires that you start right now. And I believe more than ever we need this because life can be very heavy. Just turn on the news, look around, talk to friends, and you will start to feel the heaviness of life. And I didn't live back in the 1800s, so I don't know what my great-grandparents' lives were like.

But I do think with access to social media, with us having a much more global society and being bombarded day by day with the negativity, it is important that we find a little refuge, that we figure out how to add a little joy and magic and love and passion into our everyday lives, or we will be consumed by the heaviness. Some people will say to me, well, isn't this you trying to escape life? Isn't this you trying to pretend that bad things aren't happening? And the answer is yes and no. Let me explain. What we are typically trying to escape from are our own thoughts about what is happening at all times. And sometimes you don't want to ignore those thoughts. When bad things are happening in the world I don't believe we want to just bury our head in the sand and pretend that it's not happening.

And yet again, you will be consumed by it if you stay plugged into it all of the time. So I guess one could argue it is a type of escapism, but I think it's a beautiful one. I think it's one that will make you happier. I think it's one that will help you show up in the world in a more expansive and positive way, and I think it's one that your 90-year-old self will one day say, "Well done. Well done for living your days with such beauty, intention, and love." I think many of us struggle with finding our balance between reality and what we hope to be. We have to find our balance between being in the world and being out of the world because if you constantly just look around at what is you continually recreate, what is, if you match fear with fear, you just end up with more fear.

And at the same time, I don't think any of us just want to bury our head in the sand and pretend that bad things don't happen. We all have our unique ways of processing and dealing with life and its challenges and hardships and the heartbreaking stories that we hear about and maybe have even experienced ourselves. But for me, I will tell you, learning to romanticize my life has been one of the biggest gifts that I've given myself. And when I look back on my life, it was when I started to do this that my life became magical and it continues to be magical. I have studied philosophy for many years and I've often questioned, where does romanticizing your life? Where does it fit inside of philosophical theory? Because you have the realist, those people who focus on accepting the world as it is without any illusions or any sugarcoating, and they believe in dealing with facts and reality even when it's harsh and unpleasant.

On the other hand, you have idealism which emphasizes the pursuit of high ideals, principles, and values, and they believe in striving for perfection and focusing on how things should be or could be rather than how they are. Then there's pragmatism, which is all about being practical and focusing on what works best in any given situation. They believe in finding the most efficient and effective solutions to problems even if they aren't perfect. When I think about romanticizing your life, it really doesn't fit neatly into any of those three schools of thought as it involves elements of all three. Because to be a romanticist, you can't argue and fight with what is because that takes you further and further away from the feelings that you want. You also can't be a perfectionist. You can't have such high ideals that you're constantly feeling like you are letting yourself down, and it's never good enough.

However, there are some similarities to idealism because it involves focusing on the beauty, the joy, and the potential in life, even in ordinary moments. It's about having a positive and optimistic outlook, which aligns really well with idealistic pursuits. But there's also a pragmatic element. It's not about completely ignoring reality or challenges, but rather finding practical ways to appreciate and enjoy life even when it's difficult. Romanticizing your life involves making intentional and conscious choices and taking actions to create a more positive and fulfilling experience, which is a pragmatic approach. So I want to argue that romanticizing your life is one of the best ways to create your life and lead your life into a more positive direction and here's why. When you romanticize your life, you are taking charge on where you place your attention and how you filter the world, and you can filter it in a way that makes you small, makes you anxious, makes you feel in a way that can paralyze you, or you can filter it in a way that makes you feel optimistic, that makes you feel full of gratitude, that makes you feel abundant.

And when you are in those states of being the way you show up in the world, it's powerful. Let me give you an example. About six months ago, I can't remember exactly, but we were traveling. We were in an airport and our flight was delayed, the first delay, okay, but then you know that feeling when they come over the intercom and they're like, "It's still delayed and we don't know when it's taking off." Well, it was the third time they said that I could just watch the people at the gate become more and more frustrated. I had a choice. I could become frustrated and grouchy and start complaining, but the reality is nothing was going to change that flight taking off other than whatever needed to be done to be done. And so I looked at Ombi and I was like, "Let's go on an adventure."

And she's like, "What are you talking about?" Ombi, by the way, it's my soon-to-be stepdaughter. And I'm like, "This is an amazing time to go on an adventure. Let's go see what we can find." And so we took off in the airport just looking for things. I was like, let's go find something interesting. I didn't know what we were looking for, but I was like, you know what? If we're going to be stuck here, let's make the best of it. Let's turn it into a scavenger hunt. Let's turn it into something that is more interesting than just sitting in an airport complaining about being stuck in the airport. Now, think about that. I could have drained all of my energy sitting there complaining, being with the people, frustrated and just depleting my own energy by where I place my focus and attention. But instead, I chose to rise above the situation.

I chose to create this alternative universe that I could live in that's full of adventure, that's full of opportunities, it's full of surprises. And the more I have done that in my life, the more I realize there's a whole different realm that we get to exist in. Most people are not existing in this realm because they feed off of each other's energy. They're so in their heads that they're full of anxiety, they're living in the past or fretting about the future. And the thing about romanticizing your life is it requires that you come back to the present moment. And what it really requires is mindfulness, being mindful, and taking it all in. I was just having a conversation with a friend the other day and I said, "You know what I want to get back to is living in that state of awe that I remember first having when I traveled to Europe for the first time." I remember the first time I went to Paris, you all, I was just in awe.

It took my breath away. Everywhere I looked, it was eye candy. It was so romantic. But then you go to Paris again and again and again and year after year you start to notice that you don't feel the same way. While it's still beautiful to you, it just becomes another trip. And I had noticed that with my travels not only to Paris but to other places, it's like I was not appreciating it and the only thing that changed was my lens. I didn't see it in the way that I first saw it, and I realized I get to create that by being mindful, by not taking things for granted, but really being like, wow, I am on a plane 30,000 feet in the air heading to a destination that maybe I've never been to or maybe I have, but what a miracle this is.

I'm so grateful that I get to travel and then you get off the plane and you really just take it all in. Don't worry about where you're going for dinner. Don't worry what's going to happen if it rains tomorrow, but just be in this moment and try to see it through the eyes of your first time, even if you've been there a million times. But it's probably easier to feel that romantic feeling when you're traveling. Let's be honest, when you're traveling and you're out of your familiar environment and you are seeing new things and you are more present, it's easier to access that romantic feeling. But what about your ordinary day? Waking up, getting dressed, going to work, picking up the kids, making dinner? That's when this practice is more important than ever because those ordinary days are making up the majority of our lives.

And I'm going to brag on myself here because this is one of my superpowers. I am really good at romanticizing my life. I haven't always been, which is good news for anyone that thinks, oh, this is going to be hard because I used to resist my life. I used to complain about my life. I used to have constant worry about my life. This is a skill that I have been practicing, and now it's more of a natural state of being than not. In fact, my soon-to-be stepdaughter, Ombi, she told me the other day, she was like, "You are the happiest person I know." She's like, "Why are you always in such a good mood?" And it's because I choose to be. Listen, there are many reasons that I could use to be in a bad mood. In fact, one just happened this morning.

I got a text from my builder that it looks like the house is going to be delayed again. And this is after I had made plans to move in on a certain date, and it's looking like that date is going to be pushed back. Just like the airport I could sit around and complain about it, it is what it is. I told Fons because we have to move out of our place by a certain date. I'm like, "Well, guess what? This might be an opportunity for us to go on a little short vacation while we're waiting to get into the house." There's always a romantic spin on anything. Are you looking for it? So I'm going to share with you the ways that I love to romanticize my life. Now, everybody has their different version of romance. One of the ways you can think about it is how do you like to be romanced.

Imagine life is your lover. How would you want your lover to treat you? Where do you want him or her to take you? What do you want them to say to you? How do you feel around them? What are you doing? What are you listening to? What are you eating? How are you eating? How are you dressing? That's a really fun question. If life were your lover, how would you treat it? And how would you want it to treat you? Because life is giving us an array of potential experiences, and it all comes down to how you filter it and how you think about it, and how you see it. What I experience as joy someone else might complain about only because I'm thinking about it in a different way, but on a day-to-day basis, I'm going to tell you from morning to night how I love to romanticize my life.

The first thing that I love to do when I wake up is to greet my day. What does that look like? I love to think, oh my God, it's going to be a beautiful day. Good morning. And oftentimes I'll say that to Fons. I'm like, "Good morning sunshine. It's going to be a great day. Are you excited about your day? What's your plans for the day?" Just getting that good energy going first thing in the morning versus waking up and thinking, ugh, I got to get through another day. I got a lot of stuff on my to-do list. I've got a lot of stuff on Asana that I got to check off. Those things are there. I will get to them and I will probably romanticize them when I get there. But first thing in the morning, I just have to be there in that moment looking for the blessing, looking for the joy, looking for the love, looking for the abundance.

It's there if you're looking for it. I love to look out the window at the trees and really appreciate them. Do you ever just appreciate what's right outside your window? Do you ever look and just think, wow, look at this, these beautiful trees? Or maybe you live in a city, look at these amazing buildings really appreciating what is right outside your window. Then next thing I do is I turn on music. My favorite playlist right now is called Jazz House 2024 on Spotify. It has this artist that I've been obsessed with recently called Berlioz. I think his tagline is if Matisse were to make jazz. It is so good, and I love to turn that on in the morning. And then I love to leisurely walk down to my kitchen and make my first cup of coffee. Now, you can make a cup of coffee or you can make a cup of coffee.

There is a difference between the two. One is unconscious. You just go through the motions like a robot. The other one is like a ritual, a freely paying attention to the smells, to the sound, to what's around you. Anticipating that first sip of the day. And I take my coffee and I have that first sip and I just sip it and savor it. And then I love to sit down and I love to journal in the Daily 5 Journal, which is available to all of the members within the School of Self-Image, which I almost forgot to mention. We are opening up enrollment just for two days because next month we are focused on creating your pleasure portfolio because so many people don't have true pleasure in their lives. And it's one of the reasons why you may find yourself sabotaging yourself over and over again.

It's why your energy may be depleted. It's why you may be struggling to reach your goals. It's why every day may just feel mundane and heavy. We are going to be intentionally creating a pleasure portfolio. This is a tool that I taught years ago, but I haven't taught it within the membership, and I'm so excited to share that tool with you and how to use it to have that romantic and exciting and magical life, which by the way, will help you reach your goals so much faster. But more importantly, y'all, it's just going to make you happier. It's going to allow you to appreciate and enjoy your daily life more. So again, we are opening up enrollment just for two days. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/join and get inside the membership for the month of July. It is going to be a very pleasurable month, my friends.

Nevertheless, I love to journal first thing in the morning and go through the Daily 5 process. And that really gets me into that intentional romantic state because at the heart, I'm a romantic, and when I'm not in that feeling state, I can feel it and it shows up in my work, it shows up in my relationships. It has a domino effect. So my goal is to get into that state first thing in the morning to really get intentional about how I want to show up in my day. After that, I will do one of two things. I will either go to the gym first thing in the morning or on some mornings I love to get to work first thing. It varies. Sometimes I'll go to the gym later in the day or go for a long walk in the afternoon. But let's just say I go to the gym.

Now this is where you can get out of the romance. You can get into the drudgery and the, I've got-tos and the shoulds. If you're going to go to the gym, I want you to romance the gym. What does that look like? Well, for me, it's about me appreciating my body. It's about moving in ways that feel good to me. Now, there have been seasons where what felt good to me was yoga and Pilates, and then there were seasons that what felt good was lifting weights and doing more intense exercise. It varies, but doing it from a place of love and appreciation for your body versus punishing your body, punishing yourself, there's a very different energy. It's the same activity, but one is done through the lens of romance, and the other one is done through the lens of heaviness and shoulds. After the gym, I will sometimes meet Fons for a coffee or sometimes we go to the gym together or I'll meet a friend for a coffee before I get to work.

And just really appreciate this day with the human that is in front of me. And sometimes that human is just me. Sometimes it's just me at the coffee shop and I spend time appreciating myself, which is at the core of romanticizing your life. If you don't have a good relationship with yourself, how can you have a good relationship with life? Because you're the one experiencing life. So if your relationship isn't solid with yourself, your relationship with life will not be solid either. Do you spend time appreciating you, loving on yourself, caring for yourself, celebrating yourself? Again, that's at the core. All this other stuff I'm sharing with you doesn't really mean much if the relationship with you isn't solid. So for some of you all listening, this needs to be where you start. Write yourself love letters. Write yourself letters of forgiveness if you need to.

Every day, show gratitude towards yourself. What are you proud of? What did you accomplish today? So many of us are so accustomed to looking to what we didn't do, what we failed at, what we're not good at, versus looking in the other direction. The direction that the romantic within you wants to look towards at what you did well today, what you did accomplish, what's beautiful about you, what's right about you. Love on yourself more if you want to romanticize your life. So after I go to the coffee shop and have a coffee, my second cup of the day, I come home and I get to work, but I don't work in a rushed and jarring and heavy way. I love to slow down. One of my favorite mantras is there is no hurry and right now I'm about to embark on probably the busiest season of my business.

Right now we have, let's see, four major projects that we are working on and I could not be more excited about. If you've been listening to the past few episodes where I've talked about the sweet spot and what you crave, I'm moving back into my sweet spot in business and really focusing on what I'm craving more of. And with that comes changes, comes things that need to be done. Now, I could be all up in my head worried about it and creating anxiety for myself, but it's a day-by-day process. The idealist in me, the one that dreams is always thinking about creating a better world who has those values that she wants to live by. She helps me to craft the vision. But then my realist comes in and she's like, okay, girl, this is the timeframe. This is what we're dealing with.

We got to break this down. Look at the facts of the situation. Work with your team, create a calendar, get it into Asana, and get to work. But the romantic in me, she's like, all right, now, what needs to be done today? I don't need to worry about tomorrow. I don't need to fret about what happened yesterday. What needs to be done today? What do I get to do today? And being grateful for my work, being grateful for my business, my team, my clients. I think especially as entrepreneurs, and when you have a business, you can begin to have a lot of resentment towards your business. You can begin to blame your business for how you feel. And it's like that John F. Kennedy quote where he says, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what can you do for your country?" And I feel that way with my business.

I don't want to ever have a business where it's like, what can you all do for me? What can my business do for me? I want to show up and think about what can I do for my business. What can I do for my clients? What can I do for my team? It's such a more abundant and fun energy to create from. And so when I sit down at my desk, it's like, what can I give to my business today? How can I show up and serve at the highest level? And in the meantime, I'm doing all of these things around me like I light a candle, I have my music playing in the background, and I just focus on what's right in front of me. And I give so much gratitude that I get to do this work. It is such a blessing. And no matter how hard business has been for me, and there have been seasons where it's been hard, there have been seasons full of doubt, there have been seasons full of contraction.

But one of the things I've never done is have any kind of animosity towards my business. I have always realized, and maybe this is because of how I grew up, maybe it's from working night shifts as a nurse, but for whatever reason, I have always just had immense gratitude for my business. But going back to working night shifts as a nurse, I remember my friend, Carolyn, she romanced the hell out of her career. She would come in, we would get called in. This is actually when I worked, not night shifts, this was when I worked in the OR. But we would get called in at 3:00 in the morning to do an emergency C-section, and she would come beat bopping in there, and she would say things like, "How amazing is it that we get to bring a baby into this world?" She was romancing her life, which shows you even if you are working night shift, there are things that you can look for and appreciate no matter what kind of work you're doing.

And I will tell you, Carolyn inspired me. I was like, I want to be more like her. I want to have that kind of [foreign language 00:29:44], that kind of attitude. Because let's face it, life changes, jobs change, relationships change, but can you access that romance no matter where you find yourself? So I get to work, and throughout the day I take little breaks. Sometimes I dance, sometimes I stretch. Sometimes Fons will come home and we'll have lunch together, and I just practice being grateful for what's right in front of me. And on those days where I'm feeling low, where I'm feeling down, it's because I'm not doing this. The moment I get back to romanticizing my life, I feel better. Other little things that I do is I buy myself flowers. We have flowers in our house every single week. We go to Trader Joe's. I love to go to the farmer's market.

I just love flowers. I feel like they embody a woman who's willing to slow down long enough to do something for herself, and that she places a lot of emphasis on the details of her life because the details matter. We're so caught up in the big stuff, but it's the details that are shaping the experience of your everyday life. Let's see. Other things I love to do, I already mentioned this one, but I love to put a romantic spin on life's frustrations. Look for the opportunities. Look for what's good about that moment. Look for how you can stop fighting it and enjoy it a little bit more. I also love hosting dinner parties, having friends around. The people that you surround yourself with matter. And I'm very fortunate, even in Charlotte, we moved here over a year ago and I have created the most incredible community around me.

We all get together once or twice a week. We have dinner parties, we laugh, and really appreciate the little things. I'm here in Telluride, and we've been playing this game called Rumi Cube. I just learned how to play it. It is so much fun. And just being with each other and not taking it for granted, make your daily activities more enjoyable. How can you elevate the ambiance of your house? For me, it's playing music. It's the candles, it's the flowers. It's the little details around my house that make my house feel more beautiful and notice and appreciate those joyous moments. I think we can start to take them for granted. We experience them so much that we just don't appreciate them as much. Really romanticizing your life is not that hard. It's about you being awake. It's about you appreciating. It's about you tending to the details of your life.

And most importantly, it's about loving yourself. I think about Ruby Carr. She has this beautiful quote that says, "I will never have this version of me again. Let me slow down and be with her." And that's what it means to romanticize your life. Slow down, be with you, be with the people around you. And when I say be, I mean be with them, not on your phone, not worrying about what's going to happen tomorrow, but being with them, really looking at them. This is a powerful exercise, but looking at the people you love in the eyes, and just think about how blessed you are to have them, because not to be morbid, but there might be a day where you don't. Let's not waste it away worried about what's going to happen tomorrow. Just be with the people. Be with yourself. Be with life. Appreciate all of the goodness that it offers. That my friends is how you romanticize your life. Have a beautiful week and I will see you in next week's episode, cheers.

I used to think happiness was a fairytale forever, just out of reach. I felt stuck a lot of the times, helpless, and like I was constantly failing at life. But then I discovered a simple shift or three that changed everything. Now I help women like you create their own powerfully ever after. In my free masterclass, you'll learn the secrets to unshakeable desire, fearless action, and finally believing in yourself. You deserve a life you love. So stop waiting and start creating. Watch the masterclass and unleash your inner powerhouse. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/after and watch it now.

Enjoy the Show? Don't miss another episode!Pick your favorite platform below:The Self-Image Manifesto

You’re Invited To Live An Extraordinary Life!

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Have you ever walked by a bakery and caught a whiff of freshly baked cookies, instantly igniting a craving? That same “Crave Compass” is constantly guiding us in life – if we pay attention.

Lately, I’ve been tuning into my own cravings, jotting down a long list in my journal. There are some recurring themes:

Stylish Days - where flair, intentionality, beauty, and self-expression take center stage
Creative Days - where ideas flow freely, and thoughts manifest into reality
Fun Days - where play and pleasure dictate the agenda
Healthy Days - where my plates are bursting with vibrant colors, and my body feels nourished and alive
Slow Days - where there’s no rush, no agenda, just the simple pleasure of being present

I’ve decided to let this list be my guide, shaping my days according to what I truly crave.

I encourage you to create your own Crave list. What does your heart yearn for? What brings you joy and fulfillment?

And if you’re curious about how to tap into your Crave Compass, don’t miss today's podcast episode. It’s going to be a game-changer.

Here’s to living a life filled with what we truly desire.

With love,

The Body Compass“Everything you need to know is within you.

Listen. Feel. Trust the body’s wisdom."

~Dan Millman

Have you turned down the volume of your body’s wisdom? If so, it’s time to crank it back up with a concept called The Body Compass.

This approach invites you to rediscover your inner guidance by tuning into the messages your body is sending you. Your physical and emotional responses hold the key to unlocking your most authentic, joyful life by illuminating what ignites your soul and steering you away from what drains you.

To embrace The Body Compass, start by mindfully listening to your body’s signals. Celebrate moments of invigoration and acknowledge instances of disconnection. Use these insights to make soul-nourishing choices that prioritize activities, places, habits, styles, and relationships that set your spirit on fire.

Your body’s wisdom is always available – are you ready to turn up the volume and let it guide you?

The Pivot YearWhether you’re facing a major crossroads or simply looking to cultivate a more purposeful and fulfilling life, The Pivot Year: 365 Days to Become the Person You Truly Want to Be is your guide to awakening your true potential.

With a year’s worth of daily insights and reflections designed to inspire, motivate, and challenge you, The Pivot Year is the perfect companion on the road to self-discovery. Uncover the keys to letting go of limiting beliefs, embracing new opportunities, and making meaningful changes that will allow you to create the future of your dreams.

Purchase The Pivot YearThe Crave Compass: Navigating Your Way to a Fulfilling LifeDo you ever feel like you’re craving more from life? In today’s podcast, I’m exploring a concept I call The Crave Compass – a powerful tool for tuning into your deepest desires and using them to guide your days.

Join me as I share my personal journey with The Crave Compass and offer practical tips for creating your own Crave list. Whether you’re yearning for more creativity, fun, health, or simplicity, this episode will help you unlock the power of your cravings and start living a life filled with what you truly desire.

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Listen to the Full Episode:The Truth About Confidence: 5 Myths Exposed

Confidence is often misunderstood, and host Tonya Leigh debunks five prevalent myths surrounding it in this episode. She encourages listeners to build a confident relationship with themselves and to understand that doubt is a natural part of the journey. Confidence in your abilities will grow over time through repeated actions and experiences.

Tonya dives into the topic of confidence, debunking five common myths surrounding it. She shares personal stories about her journey to self-assurance and highlights that while confidence is desirable, it is not mandatory for living an incredible life. Tonya encourages listeners to pursue their dreams even in the face of self-doubt, emphasizing that confidence can be cultivated through thoughts and actions. Tune in to challenge your beliefs about confidence and discover the power of embracing the unknown in your journey towards self-assurance.

Episode Details:00:40 - What is Confidence?

01:02 - Confidence is Overrated

01:13 - Action Before Confidence

01:58 - Myth 1: Confidence is Needed for Amazing Things

03:16 - Self-Assurance Over Confidence

04:08 - Personal Story: First Mastermind Retreat

05:54 - Building Confidence Through Repetition

07:01 - Myth 2: Confidence Comes from External Validation

09:02 - Building Self-Trust

10:32 - Myth 3: Confidence Requires Being the Smartest and Loudest

11:57 - True Confidence is Comfort with Oneself

12:29 - Myth 4: Confidence Equals Arrogance

13:56 - Confidence Has Nothing to Prove

15:02 - Myth 5: Confident People Never Doubt Themselves

16:36 - Doubt as a Companion to Confidence

Useful Resources:* FREE training: https://schoolofselfimage.com/powerfully-ever-after/ * FREE download: https://schoolofselfimage.com/self-image-manifesto/ * Sign up for the weekly Edit: http://schoolofselfimage.com/edit

Welcome to the School of Self-image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, Master Life Coach Tonya Leigh.

Hello my friends, and welcome to today's episode where we are talking about one of my favorite topics, which is confidence, what it is, what it isn't, and I'll be sharing some personal stories about my journey to self-assurance. And honestly, I sort of think confidence is overrated. Even though I want you all to feel it, I want you to have it, you don't need it to live an incredible life. Believe it or not, it is not mandatory. I share that with you because I feel like so many of you don't allow yourself to go after incredible things, to go after what your soul truly wants because you don't feel confident and you think you need to generate the confidence before you take the action. And the reality is you can do that because confidence comes through our thoughts, but sometimes it's hard for our brain to get on board with doing things we've never done before, believing fully in ourselves because it's an unknown. It's you stepping into the mystery of life that you've never been in before so it's normal and natural to feel self-doubt.

So let's dive into five myths about confidence that I want to debunk. And hopefully in doing so, you will realize that you can do incredible things in your life without a lot of confidence. And the more you do that, guess what happens? Your confidence grows.

So myth number one I just mentioned, but I'm going to mention it again because it's super important, you do not need to be confident to do amazing things. What do I mean? As I was just saying, when you're doing something you've never done before, your brain is going to be scared. You have to understand that the way the brain works, it wants to keep you in a state of known. So the moment you decide that you want to move to the new city, the moment you decide that you want to start your business, the moment you decide you are going to get on stage and give a talk, your brain is going to fill you with all of the reasons why you shouldn't do it. "I'm not ready. I'm going to fail. I don't have what it takes." All of those kinds of thoughts, that is normal.

Now, in those moments, you can listen to the doubt or you can rely on the part of you that I rely on within me, which is what I like to call self-assurance. I think one of the reasons why I've been able to create so many great results in my life is that at the end of the day, I might not be fully confident in my ability to do this new thing only because I've never done it, but here is what I am confident about. I am confident in my ability to pick myself up, to figure things out, to learn and to grow, and to use all of those situations to make me a stronger, more wise and a better human being.

I think back to my very first retreat. I'll never forget it. It wasn't my first retreat, it was the first year that I ran a mastermind and I took this particular group. We went to Charleston, South Carolina, second place was Aspen, Colorado, and then our final stop was in Monaco. Now, sometimes ignorance is bliss, and it definitely was for me back in the day when I did this because I didn't have an event planner, I really didn't know what I was doing and I didn't have a lot of confidence of me being able to pull it off seamlessly. But what I did have was a deep desire and a knowing that no matter what happened, I would figure it out. So things went great for the Charleston and the Aspen retreat, but when we were in Monaco and I had this group of women and we were having to navigate to different locations for events and dinners, and I didn't speak the language, I found myself in this position of this isn't going like the way I had envisioned. I wasn't feeling super confident in the activity.

But what I did feel confident in is that no matter what, we're going to be okay. I felt confident in who I am, but I did not have confidence in what I was doing. There is a big difference. And a lot of you are trying to have confidence in something that you've never done before, and it is practically impossible, but you do it over and over and all of a sudden you feel very confident in your ability to do that thing.

So the work that needs to be done is not trying to be confident in thing, just be confident in you. Be confident in knowing that even if you fail, you'll figure it out. Even if you fail, you're going to extend yourself grace. Even if you fail, you are going to learn so much that you'll be able to apply towards your next endeavor. That is what builds confidence.

But you don't need confidence to do amazing things. I doubt when Picasso did his first painting, he felt confident, but he was confident in himself. He was confident probably... I act like I'm friends with Picasso, rest in peace, but I would imagine that he was confident in himself knowing that no matter how it turned out, it would be a learning experience, he would grow from that. So myth number one is you have to be confident to do amazing things wrong, you don't.

Another myth about confidence is that it comes from external validation. A lot of you may rely on this to feel confident. So what this looks like is if your coworkers, if your partner, if your friends tell you that you're doing a great job, they tell you you look amazing, they tell you that you are the most incredible human on the planet, which you are, but if you rely on that, here's what I know to be true, there will be a day where that is non-existent. There will be a day where you don't have the people around you to tell you great job. You won't have the people around you to give you that assurance and so what ends up happening is that your confidence becomes this rollercoaster. It becomes this thing that needs to be fed from the outside world. And when you don't have it, you use that as a reason not to feel confident. That's why I love thinking of confidence as something that I get to have about myself. I get to feel confident based on my trust and my ability to figure things out, my trust in my decisions, my trust in who I am.

Now, if I start outsourcing that to other people, I'm going to be in trouble because some people may not understand my decisions, some people may think that what I want to do isn't going to work, and if I listen to the outside world then I lose sight and I lose connection with that inner knowing, that inner part of me. So I know the first myth was you don't have to be confident to do amazing things, but there is a level of confidence that we all can begin to establish within ourselves. It's not being confident at doing something, it's confidence of just knowing that you have your own back, knowing that you are there for you, and what that requires is that you build a level of self-trust.

If you are someone that is constantly breaking promises to yourself, if you're someone that is constantly letting yourself down, it's very difficult to have that confidence because you don't trust yourself. Self-trust is built little by little day by day. And if you have spent years not trusting yourself and letting yourself down, this doesn't happen overnight. This could take a year or more to reestablish that relationship of trust with yourself. If you think about if someone betrays you, it takes a while for them to win your trust back, and so that's how we have to think about our relationship with ourselves. If we've been betraying ourselves, it's going to take a minute for us to build that level of self-trust. That's where I want our confidence coming from, knowing that no matter what situation that we find ourselves in, that we have that level of confidence within ourselves to be okay to figure things out and to learn and grow from that situation.

Myth number three around confidence is that you must be the smartest and loudest person in the room to feel confident. This could not be further from the truth. I used to think this. I've been around some very smart and extremely extroverted, outgoing, loud people in my life and I used to think that they were confident. Some of them are and some of them were not. What I've come to understand, it's the person who is comfortable with herself, that is true confidence. If you are an introvert, if you are on the quieter side, and even if you aren't the smartest person in the room but you own that, you own that gap of learning that you need to do and perhaps that's why you've placed yourself in the room and you own all of that, that is true confidence.

There have been many times that I've been in a room and I've tried to perform and act like I was confident by pretending to know things I didn't know or being loud, and it just felt out of alignment. It was coming from insecurity. It wasn't coming from confidence.

Now, someone may have seen me and thought, "That girl is confident," but the reality inside, I didn't feel that at all. And from doing this work, I now can sit back, I can be the first to tell you, "You know what? I don't know. That's why I'm here. Can you teach me?" Or I can sit back and just listen and observe and perhaps be the quietest person in the room knowing that that confidence is within me because I am comfortable with who I am. I know who I am and I own it. That is true confidence.

The other myth that I want to debunk is that confidence is the same as arrogance. These are two very, very different things. Arrogance is about feeling superior to others, thinking you are better than. And if you think about that, if you think you're better than someone, that means you think there is something to prove and therefore where is that coming from? What energy? It's coming from insecurity. We've all been around those people who are vivacious, they are telling you how great they are, they're bragging about themselves, and you can look at that and be like, "Wow, this person is so confident." But if we look at the intention, we'll probably find that they are trying to prove something to you. They are trying to get your validation in order to feel good about themselves.

Now listen, I'm all for us bragging and celebrating ourselves from a place of joy, from a place of self-love, but never as a reason to make someone else feel bad in order for you to look good, because that's not confidence. That is a very different energy. Confidence really has nothing to prove. Think about it. Confidence has nothing to prove. That's when you know you've reached the ultimate confidence where you just get to show up as you are, however that is, and you have nothing to prove to anyone because again, you are owning all of you. You have accepted all of you. That is true confidence, and that is something that you develop as you develop a relationship with yourself. When you understand your strengths and your weaknesses, what you love, what you don't love. You own your past, you're not a victim to it, but you own the mistakes that you've made. You've dealt with all of the healing that's needed to be done in order to do that. When you get to that place, you can show up in a room and just be you, and that is true confidence.

Myth number five about confidence is confident people never doubt themselves, not true. Even me knowing myself like I do now and being very comfortable in my own skin, even with all of that, I sometimes have insecurities and I sometimes doubt myself. Why? Because I'm a human being with a very human brain.

The difference between what may be perceived as confidence and what isn't is that confident people don't react to the doubt. What do I mean by that? Whenever I go out to do something I've never done... An example is a couple of years ago, maybe three years ago, I decided to host a big event in South Beach in Miami, and I had never done an event at this scale. I had a lot of doubt being able to manage the energy of a room for three days, being able to manage my self-care, being able to deliver so that people felt that it was worthwhile. There was a lot of doubt in that entire experience all the way up until the final day. But the difference is I didn't react to the doubt.

A lot of times what happens is that you will start to listen to the doubt and you'll let the doubt talk you out of it. I don't do that. I like to doubt the doubt. I like to question it. When doubt tells me, "You can't do this," I like to ask doubt, "Why not? Let me tell you why I think I can." When doubt tells me that I may fail, I like to tell the doubt, "But it's possible I will succeed. And even if I do fail, I will be so proud of the courage that I had to go after this." When the doubt tells me that, "Why bother? It may not work out. You're going to make a big mistake." I just don't react to it. That is the difference.

Confident people don't let doubt determine their actions. It's not that they don't have doubt, it's not that they don't have insecurity, they just don't let that run their lives. And what ends up happening is you go out and you do things with the doubt, you just bring it along with you. But as you're doing things and you're learning and you're growing and you're getting better at that thing, whatever it is that you're doing, then you start to feel that confidence in the ability to do that thing. But all along you get to feel confident in who you are and your ability that you trust yourself to figure it out, to pick yourself up if it doesn't work out well, and to learn and grow from these experiences.

I will tell you in my life I experience doubt on a daily basis, and yet I still feel confident. I feel confident in me, but I may not feel confident in that thing that I'm doing, and it's not required. You don't need that confidence to do amazing things. What you do need is a relationship with yourself, building that confident relationship with you. That is within your control. You feeling confident in doing big things you've never done before, you can try, but chances are your brain's going to have a hard time getting on board. But over time, doing it over and over, that repetition, all of a sudden you're like, "Oh, wow, I'm really great at running a business. Oh wow, I'm really great at speaking on stages. I'm really great at," whatever it is you want to do, but you're going to have a lot of doubt along the way. Doubt is not a reason to stop. It's a reason to keep going. Follow the doubt, question it along the way and know over time your confidence in your ability to do that thing will grow as a result.

So to recap, the five myths that I just debunked is number one, that you need confidence to do amazing things. Yes, you need confidence in you, but you don't need confidence in your ability to do that thing yet. That will come in time.

The second one is that confidence comes from external validation. You can try to get it from that, but true confidence comes from within.

Myth number three is you have to be the smartest or the loudest person in the room to be confident. It's not true. You can be the least informed and the quietest person in the room, and as long as you own who you are, that is true confidence.

Also, confidence is the same as arrogance, very different. Arrogance comes from insecurity. Confidence comes from just believing and trusting in yourself.

And then finally, confident people never doubt themselves. We do all day every day. It's part of the process. But the difference is we don't let the doubt determine our actions.

All right, my friends, I hope you enjoyed today's episode and I'll see you in the next one. Cheers.

I used to think happiness was a fairytale, forever just out of reach. I felt stuck a lot of the times, helpless and like I was constantly failing at life, but then I discovered a simple shift or three that changed everything. Now I help women like you create their own powerfully ever after. In my free masterclass, you'll learn the secrets to unshakable desire, fearless action, and finally believing in yourself. You deserve a life you love so stop waiting and start creating. Watch the masterclass and unleash your inner powerhouse. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/after and watch it now.

Enjoy the Show? Don't miss another episode!Pick your favorite platform below:The Self-Image Manifesto

You’re Invited To Live An Extraordinary Life!

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Life has a way of pulling us in a million directions, doesn’t it? Just the other day, I found myself juggling my daughter’s move, my parents’ visit, and a neverending list of work tasks. Oh, and did I mention I’m moving soon?

Overwhelm started to creep in, encouraging me to panic and push through.

But here’s the thing: I’ve danced with overwhelm before and know that frantic energy never leads to my best work. So, I decided to take a different approach.

I indulged in a luxurious bath (lavender salts and all!).

I let myself get lost in the beauty of the trees outside my window. As I soaked away the tension, I noticed a tiny bird perched on a branch, utterly unperturbed by the flurry of activity around it.

In that serene moment, I realized something profound: overwhelm is a choice, and it’s not one I’m willing to make.

When I emerged from that bath, I felt a shift. My energy was lighter, more focused. Clarity had replaced confusion. I got dressed with a newfound sense of purpose and tackled my day using the strategies I’m sharing in today’s podcast episode.

Click here to listen.

Here’s the truth: overwhelm is a choice. And with all the choices we have in life, it’s one we can confidently leave behind.

Instead, let’s choose to savor the simple moments, find peace in the present, and trust that we will accomplish what needs to be done.

If you ever find yourself drowning in a sea of obligations, remember this: overwhelm may knock at your door, but you hold the key to peace within yourself.
So, take a deep breath and go take a bath!

Until next time,

The Three Ds“Overwhelm is never created by anything outside of you. Overwhelm is an emotion, and emotions are created by the thoughts in your head. Period."

~Tonya Leigh

Let that thought sink in. YOU have the power to untangle yourself from the web of overwhelm by simply shifting how you think.

One way I do this is through a technique I call The Three Ds. This tactic gives me clarity, solidifies my priorities, and puts me back in control of my life.

Here’s how to harness the power of The Three Ds:

Take out a sheet of paper and write down every task on your mind.
On a new sheet of paper, create 3 columns: Delete, Delegate, and Delight.
- Unnecessary tasks (think “shoulds”) go in the Delete column. And then… let them go!
- Place tasks that can be outsourced in the Delegate column and entrust them to others who can support you.
- Everything else is a must-do and goes in the Delight column.
- Now, your work is to schedule all your Delight tasks and – you guessed it! – delight in them. Because what’s the point in doing something and being miserable about it?

The Three Ds are your secret weapon for conquering overwhelm and creating a life that sets your soul on fire. Try this exercise and see what happens. Mini Day PlannerAre you ready to take your newfound clarity and purpose to the next level? Say hello to the Mini Daily Planner – a compact, stylish organization companion.

While I’ve previously highlighted the larger version of this day planner, I know not everyone wants to carry something bulky. That’s why I’m thrilled there’s a miniature version of this trusted tool. It’s perfect for harnessing the power of planning without the extra size weighing you down.

If you want to elevate your travel game and reconnect with your Sweet Spot, give the Paravel Weekender Bag a try.

Purchase the Mini Day PlannerWhen You Feel Like You’re Drowning in Your To-DosFeeling overwhelmed by your never-ending to-do list? Trust me, I’ve been there! But, not anymore…

This week on the podcast, I’m diving into the strategies that have transformed my relationship with my tasks, and I’ll share how to trade in that overwhelming sense of drowning for a life of clarity, focus, and joyful productivity! If you’re ready to take control of your to-dos and make them work for you, this episode is a must-listen.

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Ever had one of those days where everything clicks? Ideas flow like a faucet, projects hum along effortlessly, and you feel like you’re floating on a cloud of joie de vivre?

That, my friend, is the Sweet Spot.

Last month, I had one of those glorious Sweet Spot days. I was sitting with my team at our retreat – ideas bounced around the room, laughter filled the air, and the vibe was pure magic.

Looking at everyone, I realized this was exactly what I envisioned years ago – a team that shares the burning enthusiasm for our mission.

But here’s the thing about Sweet Spots: they’re like butterflies – beautiful, fleeting, and guaranteed to flit away eventually.

Last year, my business was a far cry from a Sweet Spot. In fact, it felt like I was slogging through molasses (not recommended!).

Here’s the good news: those off-kilter moments are normal. Life’s a dance of highs and lows, sweet and sour. Without the contrasting sour bits, how would we ever truly appreciate the sweetness?

That’s why I’ve stopped stressing about the inevitable dips. Fighting the current only pulls you further from the shore. Instead, I’ve learned to embrace every state I find myself in: the good, the bad, and the in-between.

The beauty is that thanks to the tools we teach here at the School of Self-Image, I know how to navigate back to my Sweet Spot.

Think of it like a fun game, not a personal failing. When I feel the flow fading, I take a deep breath, relax, and gently nudge myself back towards that sweet zone. And guess what? It works!

So, remember, the Sweet Spot shuffle is part of the journey. Embrace the whole dance, and you’ll be back in that flow state sooner than you think.

Be well,

Starting at the EndWhen pursuing your goals or exploring your Sweet Spot, having a clear vision of success is crucial.

One powerful approach is to start at the end – visualize your ideal outcome and work backward. By reverse engineering your journey, you can identify the key milestones and actions needed to align your pursuits with your unique Sweet Spot.

It’s like having a compass that guides you toward your true north, ensuring you stay on your most authentic path.

This process helps you stay focused on what truly matters, ensuring you’re investing your time and energy into the things that bring you joy and fulfillment. So, as you embark on your Sweet Spot journey, remember to start at the end and let your vision light the way.

Paravel Weekender BagSometimes, all you need is a little time away to rediscover your Sweet Spot. And when it comes to the perfect travel companion, I can’t recommend the Paravel Weekender Bag enough. Whether going on a quick getaway or using it for longer trips, this bag has me covered.

What I love most is that this bag is not only spacious and stylish but also eco-friendly. It’s made from recycled materials, so I feel good about my choice while looking chic as I travel.

Plus, its durable construction means it can keep up wherever I go.

If you want to elevate your travel game and reconnect with your Sweet Spot, give the Paravel Weekender Bag a try.

Buy the Weekender HereThe Sweet Spot (and How to Find Yours)Like Goldilocks, when she finds the bed that’s “just right,” The Sweet Spot is that magical place where my health, work, relationships, and purpose align perfectly. In this podcast, I’m sharing the secrets to achieving and maintaining this optimal balance.

Join me as I explore the essence and crucial elements of living in The Sweet Spot. Whether you’re seeking to optimize your life or simply create one that feels “just right,” this podcast provides the insights and inspiration you need to craft your own unique Sweet Spot playbook.

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Listen to the Full Episode:Soul Cravings: The Path to Joy and Fulfillment

Pay attention to your soul cravings and align with your core values, strengths, and passions for deep fulfillment. In the podcast episode, Tonya Leigh emphasizes the importance of listening to your soul's cravings, which originate from the deepest part of you and are in harmony with your core values, strengths, and passions. These cravings differ from societal cravings influenced by external expectations and norms. By paying attention to your soul cravings, you can experience a profound sense of purpose, joy, and alignment in your life.

Tonya shares her personal journey of discovering her soul cravings, such as a desire to learn about the world, feel at home in different cultures, and explore various cuisines. By following these cravings, she was able to align with her true self and move towards her North Star. She highlights the contrast between societal cravings, which may offer temporary approval or success but lack deep fulfillment, and soul cravings, which lead to a sense of purpose and joy.

She encourages listeners to pay attention to their own cravings and explore what their soul truly longs for in life.

Episode Details:00:39 - Tonya's New York City Experience

01:55 - Identifying Your Cravings

02:36 - Personal Development Journey

03:08 - Essential Self vs. Social Self

04:12 - Excavating Your True Self

05:06 - Following Soul Cravings

06:08 - Discovering Worldly Cravings

07:00 - Societal vs. Soul Cravings

10:03 - Discomfort in Following Cravings

12:12 - Recognizing Soul Cravings

13:05 - Creating Space for Soul Cravings

14:10 - Developing Self-Trust

15:37 - Paying Attention to Intuition and Body

21:02 - Practical Exercise: Mood Boards

24:04 - Energy from Soul Cravings

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, Master Life Coach, Tonya Leigh.

What is happening, my friends? I just checked into a hotel in New York City, and I'm sitting here at this table looking at the most stunning cityscape. I can see the Freedom Tower from here, and it is a beautiful day in New York City. And I am going to be inside working most of the day. I have a 7:30 dinner reservation, but between now and then, head down, working. I am here meeting with part of my team because we are working on some really exciting projects within the business. The things that we're working on are things that my soul has been craving, just wanting, desiring, that deep, deep longing.

Last week, if you listened to the episode, I talked about your sweet spot, and I talked about how in my business I have felt out of my sweet spot over the last year especially. I'm moving back into it, and in order to do that, you have to pay attention to your soul craving. And so today's episode's going to be an extension of last week's because I want you all to really think about what you are craving in your life. One of the best ways to go about doing this is to think about a certain part of your life, and it's usually helpful to go to the part that you're least satisfied with, is it your health? Is that your financial situation? Is it your career? Is it your relationships? Is it your spiritual journey? Where do you feel the least satisfied? And what is it that you're truly craving in that area?

When I think about my life, especially back when I first started my coaching business, I was first coming into the world of personal development, I had been doing a lot of work on myself, but I didn't have context to it. I was just stumbling along figuring it out. I had this understanding that I had to change who I was on the inside in order to change on the outside. But then I was introduced to Martha Beck's work. I'll never forget reading her book, Finding Your Own North Star. In that book, she talks about the essential self versus the social self. I realized that most of my life I had paid more attention to the social self, the self that was trying to please everyone, the self that was trying to fit in, the self that was so afraid of disapproval, the self that was doing what everybody told her she should do.

These are societal cravings. They are cravings that are influenced by external expectations and norms. Again, they're often based on what you think you should do or what you should want. With these types of cravings, you get this temporary approval or this temporary feeling of success, but you lack deep fulfillment. Every time you follow them, it often leads to you feeling more disconnected from your true self. And that's the self that I'm interested in helping you excavate and find within you, that's the work that we do within the membership. In order to get back to your true self, the self that you came here to be, the self that is deeply fulfilled, the self that is having an impact on the world in your own unique way, that only you can, the self that has that joie de vivre, in order to get back to her, you have to get in touch with your soul cravings.

This is part of your essential self. They come from the deepest part of you, and they align with your core values, your strengths, your passions. And when you fulfill them, you have this deep sense of purpose, of joy, of feeling aligned in your life. When you follow your soul cravings, even if it's challenging, even if it's hard, it'll feel expansive. And so when I was introduced to Martha's work, I started to do a lot of this deep introspection of what do I really crave in my life? What do I deeply, deeply want? It sent me on this whole path of self-discovery, and it all started with that one question that many of you have heard me talk about when a doctor turned to me and said, "Who do you want to be?"

When the word worldly came to mind, it opened up this little portal into all of these cravings that I realized that I'd had ever since I was a little girl. I wanted to learn about the world. I wanted to feel at in the world. I wanted to discover different cuisines and learn about art and travel. I wanted to be a worldly woman. And by listening to those cravings one by one, whether it's the craving to read a certain book, the craving to turn right down a street, the craving to walk into a store, the craving to take a class, the craving to hire a coach, the craving to order a certain cuisine on a menu, by listening to my soul's cravings, not my societal cravings, but my soul's cravings, has led me towards my North Star.

There have been times, as I talked about last week, where I've gotten off course. Do you know why? Because I was listening to the societal cravings. And let me tell you all, it can be confusing in our own heads. We can wonder, "Is this a soul craving or is this a societal craving? Is this just me being afraid because I've hit an upper limit, or is this because this isn't a good choice for me?" I want to talk about that a little bit because for me, in full transparency, that has been a lot of the work that I've been doing over the past couple of years. The reason why I fell into this work is that I fell out of my sweet spot and I realized I had been listening to my social self, the self that was listening to the people around me telling me that I should want a certain amount of money, I should run my business in a certain way, I should have my team in a certain way. The more I listened to all of that noise and followed through on it, the further I got away from my sweet spot, because those weren't my true soul cravings.

Now, I have a company, of course, I want to grow it. I want to make a beautiful living. I want to support my team in beautiful ways. I want to provide immense value to my customers, to anyone that comes into contact with the School of Self-Image, whether it's through this free podcast or if you're in the membership. But I'm driven differently than some people around me. And listen, I want to be very clear, I believe in wanting what you want. I believe in honoring your soul cravings. But a lot of people are going after things that are societal cravings. They're not their deep cravings. So then they get them, and they may have a moment of fulfillment, but there is a lack of deep satisfaction. It's very important to me, you all, that the way I do something feels good.

And so when I'm doing something that doesn't feel good, I hope I catch myself and course correct quick enough. Because in life we're going to do things that don't feel good. We have to actually to figure things out. Life is about contrast. You have to experience one thing to appreciate its opposite. And then on top of that, there are a lot of people on the sidelines that if they see you doing something that's out of alignment, they like to call you out. And then that just drives you more into the social self, into those societal cravings of, "Oh my God, well, let me course correct and please these people and please these people." I'm just suggesting that we just come back to our soul, we come back to what we deeply, deeply want.

Now, I want to be clear about something. Earlier I was talking about doing things that don't feel good, and I want to clarify that I'm not talking about the discomfort of following a soul craving. I'm talking about the discomfort that comes and the lack of fulfillment that comes from following a societal craving. Because you're going to have discomfort no matter what, but is the discomfort leading you more towards deep, deep fulfillment? Because when you follow your soul cravings, you're going to disappoint a lot of people, there're going to be a lot of people who don't like your decisions, there are going to be a lot of people that judge you. So you're going to have to feel the discomfort of that. Also, the discomfort of, is this going to work out? I don't know where this is leading. Because you're stepping into the mystery of life. That's where soul cravings will lead you.

Societal cravings will often lead you to something that's very familiar, whereas soul cravings, you're stepping out onto the horizon of life, and that can be very scary. But that discomfort is worth it. More than anything, I'm hoping that this conversation is offering you relief, because some of you right now are listening to this and you are realizing, "Yeah, a lot of what I'm doing right now is a societal craving." The last thing you need to do is shame yourself for it, because listen, friend, you are not alone. Everybody listening to this, I don't care how high and mighty you may think you are, at some point, maybe even now, you are following societal cravings. It's driven out of fear. It's driven out of ego, and we do it for a reason. We do it because maybe you don't have the tools, maybe you are afraid of the change, maybe you're afraid of the discomfort. So if you find yourself out of your sweet spot now understanding that it's because maybe you've been following societal cravings give yourself some grace, please. Nothing's gone wrong. Now is a beautiful moment to turn towards what your soul deeply craves.

You'll know a soul craving because it will bring you joy. Even if it's hard, it'll bring you so much joy and satisfaction. It will be aligned with what you deeply value. All of our values are different, so it's important that you understand what you value. And it will lead to growth, and it'll lead to a life. If you fast-forward and imagine yourself following a particular craving and you're at the end of your life, you'll look back and realize that was a well-lived life, versus the societal cravings, which can be unhealthy. They may give you short-term gratification, but they're rooted in fear and external validation, and they will not lead to a life that's deeply satisfying.

So how do we start to pay attention to our soul cravings? Well, it's important to give yourself space because one of the obstacles to noticing and honoring your soul cravings is all of the noise and distraction in today's super busy, super stimulating world. Maybe you need to create space to journal more. Maybe you need to stop scrolling on Instagram and Facebook or TikTok, whatever you love to scroll on. Maybe you need to have some alone time. Maybe you need to plug into different communities. But my own experience has been, when there is so much coming at you, you have to be the one that puts up a red velvet rope around your mind, around your soul so that you can hear you again, so that you can listen and pay attention to what you're being nudged towards and what you're being nudged away from.

The other thing you have to develop is self-trust, because this is a requirement. Because a lot of times what happens is we have the soul craving come up and we don't trust it, and we don't trust it because of things of the past. Maybe you've been following cravings that haven't turned out well and you are telling yourself you can't trust yourself because of the past. But if you examine it, maybe it didn't turn out well because it wasn't a true soul craving.

But what I've discovered is that to follow your soul cravings you have to trust yourself. The only way to trusting yourself is to follow through on the things you say you're going to do for you, to pay attention to yourself. You don't create trust by continuing to doubt and ignore yourself. And then the other thing that you're going to have to embrace in order to discover your soul cravings is the fear and the self-doubt that comes along with it, because it will require that you step outside of your comfort zone. And then the final thing that I'm going to talk about regarding soul cravings is you have to pay attention. You have to pay attention to your intuition and your body.

Your intuition is that inner knowing that is always working to guide you towards your soul desires, your soul cravings. It's that internal compass, we'll call it the crave compass, that is leading you towards what you deeply crave. And that requires that you pay attention to your body and your energy. So notice when you walk into a place, do you feel expansive or do you feel contracted? Do you feel excited or do you feel disappointed? Your body is always speaking to you, but unfortunately, especially in today's world, we can be so in our heads and so disconnected from our bodies. And our bodies hold the answers. That internal compass is always working, but it's going to require that you pay attention to the little inner nudges you get to the physical sensations that you experience when you see certain things, when you hear certain things, when you're around certain people, when you smell certain things, when you taste certain things. It speaks to you through all of your senses.

And so if you feel like you're someone who is disconnected from your body, one of the things you can start doing is just hourly body scans from your head to your toe. What are you feeling? What are you experiencing? Are you feeling tightness? Are you feeling relaxed? Are you feeling tingly somewhere? What are you feeling in your body? Another way to get back into our bodies is through mindful movement, whether that's dance. Recently I've been doing a lot of yoga, which has been really great, not only for my body and my strength, but also getting back in touch with my body, listening, being aware of where my body is in relationship to space, how my body is feeling in relationship to the environment that it's in.

Our intuition is always guiding us. I've spoken about it before, but I love to think of it being hot and cold, that game that we played as kids. When you're moving towards your soul cravings, when you're moving towards your sweet spot, it will feel like it's getting warmer, like it's getting hot. One of the things that I really appreciate about my current team is, whenever we're meeting and we're throwing around ideas, they are consistent because I've talked to them openly about being out of my sweet spot and how I don't want that to happen again, even though it will because that's life, you go in and out of it. But I don't want to be out of it as long as I was.

They are so good at holding me accountable because what they'll say to me is, "Tonya, I want you to pay attention to how this feels. Really feel into it. Get out of your head and let's feel it. What is the feeling right now?" And when I do that, there will be things that logically my brain's like, "Yeah, you should do that," but my body is saying, "No, that's not it. I just moved away from my sweet spot. That must be a societal craving or an emotional craving. It's not a soul craving." So I want you to notice what feels hot. To me, hot feels expansive, it feels exciting, it feels passionate, it feels electrifying. Whereas cold is very constrictive. If you think about it, even like your blood vessels, when you're cold, your blood vessels constrict, when you're hot, they expand, they open up.

That's what it's like, you'll feel constricted. You'll feel slow. You'll feel weighted. You'll feel burdened. You'll feel heavy. Your body is always giving you those clues. Now, your brain may be telling you, "Yeah, you should go for that, you should want that," but what does your body say? The way I like to think about it, you all, is let your intuition, your body, tell you where it wants to go, and then get your brain on board. A lot of times we do it the opposite. We let our brain tell us where we should go, and then we try to force our body to move in a direction that it doesn't want to go.

I just got this vision of some of the horses that I used to work with. I used to love being with horses. I used to have horses. I remember trying to pull certain horses in a direction that I wanted to go, and the horse would just resist me because something in that horse was saying, "This isn't the path. This isn't safe. This isn't where we should go." And so let your body, let your intuition, let your soul tell you the direction that you want to go, and then you're going to have to work on all of the limiting beliefs that come up when you start to head in that direction. But that is the work. That's what's required to live by your crave compass.

And so I was thinking about today's episode, I'm like, "I really want to give you all something that you can do, something that you can try in order to begin to open up this part of you, to access this wisdom that is already within you." One of the things that I love to do, and I've been doing this a lot with my business recently, is creating these mood boards, these boards that just represent something that I'm craving. Now, when you do this, it's very important that you don't try to figure out the how, you don't even try to figure out the what eventually. You just pay attention to the things that are speaking to you, and you don't even have to know why.

So you can go and get a bunch of magazines, you could do it on Pinterest, or even when you're out walking, you can come back and journal. I don't know, I heard the song and for whatever reason, I just felt electrified. It felt so in alignment. Write the song down. But if you want to do it visually, just collect all of these images that are speaking to you and put them all together. And then you can begin to ask yourself questions like, "Is there a theme here?" When you look at your collage of cravings, what emotions or sensations arise in your body? And what did these reveal about what you're craving? Are there any surprises about the images or the words or the themes that have emerged from your collage?

You can ask yourself if your collage could speak, what message or invitation would it offer you about your soul's path? Which of these images or elements of your collage feels most exciting to you right now? And what does that represent about your deepest desires? When I recently did this for the business, I just started putting a lot of images together, and what came to me, because I had images of Europe, some in France, some in Italy, a lot of old world architecture, I saw a lot of neutral colors, so soft colors, but every once in a while there would be a bold image that would jump out. And so I put that there. I saw a lot of fun and play and joy. And so I just started pulling these themes out and asking, "What is this revealing to me about the business and who I'm being in the business? What is that bold move that maybe I'm being called to make?"

I just journaled a lot, and it was a beautiful exercise of really coming back to my soul cravings, paying attention to my body, what speaks to me, asking those questions that allow me to go deeper into what I truly want. And what I can tell you all, there is an energy that emerges when you get back in touch with your soul cravings. I am so excited about this season of my life. I'm so excited about this season of the business. I'm so excited about this season with community and growth that I'm experiencing. All of that has been a result of slowing down, of paying attention, and getting back in touch with my soul cravings.

I hope you all will do this exercise, and I would love to hear from you. If you are on Instagram, come on over, tell me what you think of today's episode and what is one thing that you know that you're craving right now, that your soul is craving. And then the work is to begin to create that for yourself, begin to infuse that craving into your day, into your relationships, into your business, into your career. What is that one thing that your soul is craving right now?

Listen, it's trying to speak to you. Pay attention. Have a beautiful week, my friends. I'll see you on next week's episode. Cheers.

I used to think happiness was a fairy tale, forever just out of reach. I felt stuck a lot of the times, helpless, and like I was constantly failing at life. But then I discovered a simple shift, or three, that changed everything. Now I help women like you create their own powerfully ever-after. In my free masterclass, you'll learn the secrets to unshakable desire, fearless action, and finally believing in yourself. You deserve a life you love, so stop waiting and start creating. Watch the masterclass and unleash your inner powerhouse. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/after and watch it now.

Enjoy the Show? Don't miss another episode!Pick your favorite platform below:The Self-Image Manifesto

You’re Invited To Live An Extraordinary Life!

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Life throws us some curveballs, doesn’t it? Sometimes, it’s sunshine and Parisian pastries; other times, unexpected moments leave us questioning who we are. This week, I’ve been thinking about those plot twists that challenge our self-image.

First, there was my divorce, where I found myself not only single but a mother. A new version of me was born out of that situation, but it wasn’t pleasant. In fact, there were nights when I wondered, “How will I make it through?”

But I did. And then (as all good stories go), I found myself in Paris.

I craved something different, a life I couldn’t quite define. But strolling those cobblestone streets, indulging in pastries, and soaking in the effortless Parisian style, it all became clear.

I could envision the life I craved – a balance between ambition and ease, filled with simple pleasures and timeless elegance.

If you look back on your life, you will see the moments that changed you.

Maybe it’s the unexpected joy (and perhaps a little fear) of getting married – suddenly, you’re not just “you,” you’re part of a partnership.

Or perhaps it’s the unimaginable grief of losing a loved one, leaving you grappling with a new reality and a new identity.

Even a seemingly positive change, like a new job, can force us to confront new strengths and weaknesses, reshaping how we see ourselves.

(Psst...there’s more on the podcast!)

For now, think about those moments that have challenged and shaped your self-image.

Until next time,

P.S. Life’s plot twists can be challenging, but the School of Self-Image is here to support you through them. Share your stories, find strength in community, and remember, you’re not alone.

The Power of SlipstreamsHave you ever been “in flow?” That exhilarating state where everything clicks, and progress feels effortless?

This is the same concept as slipstreams, where you align yourself with existing momentum to propel you towards your goals.

Just as cyclists conserve energy by riding behind a leader, you can harness the power of slipstreams in life by surrounding yourself with driven individuals, adopting proven strategies, and leveraging tools to help you achieve.

Slipstreams provide a path of least resistance, allowing you to accomplish more with less effort. What are the slipstreams in your life, and how can they carry you towards your dreams?

Slipstream Time Hacking: How to Cheat Time, Live More, and Enhance HappinessIt was actually through Slipstream Time Hacking that I first discovered the incredible power of slipstreams. When Benjamin Hardy handed me a copy of his book during a mastermind session, I had no idea it would completely transform my understanding of time and success.

This book introduced me to the concept of riding the currents of time to achieve my goals and create a life beyond my wildest dreams. Benjamin’s sophisticated yet practical guidance challenged my perception of what was possible and provided me with tools to help design my ideal future. Trust me, this book is a must-read.

Buy The Kindle Book HereSelf-Image EventsWinning an award, changing careers, or conquering a fear – these defining moments are the self-image events that redefine who we are.

In today’s podcast, I explore the power of these pivotal moments and uncover how they profoundly impact our lives. Plus, I’ll help you learn how to identify, embrace, and leverage your self-image events as catalysts for your own personal growth and transformation.

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Listen to the Full Episode:Overcoming Overwhelm: What to Do When You're Drowning in Your To-Dos

One of the key insights from the podcast episode is the understanding that overwhelm is an emotion created by the thoughts in our heads. Host and Master Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh explains that when we feel overwhelmed, we are often in a state of fight or flight, where our sympathetic nervous system is activated. This heightened state of stress and panic can make it challenging to think clearly and find solutions to our overwhelming to-do lists.

To manage overwhelm effectively, Tonya suggests accessing the parasympathetic nervous system. This system is responsible for rest and digest functions, promoting a state of calm and relaxation. By engaging the parasympathetic nervous system, we can counteract the fight or flight response and regain clarity of thought. She reflects on her own journey through overwhelm and provides tools to help listeners manage and conquer their to-do lists effectively.

If you've ever felt like you're drowning in tasks, this episode is a must-listen for practical advice and inspiration.

Episode Details:00:00 - Introduction to Feeling Overwhelmed

05:30 - Overcoming Overwhelm with Self-Care

0:22 - Filtering To-Do List with the Four D's

13:04 - Providing Clarity through Scheduling

4:06 - Releasing Perfectionism for Productivity

16:28 - Embracing the Journey, Not the Destination

18:26 - Celebrating Choices and Finding Inner Peace

20:10 - Empowering Action with Dream Life Masterclass

Useful Resources:* FREE Training: https://schoolofselfimage.com/powerfully-ever-after/ * FREE Download: https://schoolofselfimage.com/self-image-manifesto/ * Sign up for the weekly Edit: http://schoolofselfimage.com/edit

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach Tonya Leigh.

Hello my friends, and welcome back to the podcast. How are you feeling? How are you doing? Me, I'm doing much better than I was a week ago because a week ago, I felt like I was drowning. I felt like I was drowning in my to-do list. Does ever happened to you where all of a sudden you have this panic, you have this you anxiety, this worry of how am I going to get it all done?

That was me a week ago. And I will say I've come a long way with the emotion of overwhelm. It's something that I don't experience that often because I now understand what creates it. Overwhelm is just an emotion created by the thoughts in your head. And it can feel so real. It felt so real for me last week when I was in it, I had that moment of like, "Oh my goodness, there's a lot to get done here. How are you going to do it all?" But I've been through this process so much that I have tools now that I can use to navigate these moments. And so I spent the day studying myself as I worked through my own overwhelm and it actually inspired this podcast.

So I'm now on the other side of it. I'm grateful that it happened, but I know this is something that a lot of you deal with. And the reason why I know it is I have conversations with you. I coach some of you. And one of the big emotions, especially in our world today, is overwhelm. You think about all of the information we're bombarded with, all of the obligations, the task. Life can feel overwhelming. And that's why it's so important that you have a process that you can turn to when you are feeling that way.

And so I want to share with you what to do when you feel like you're drowning in your to-do list. And the way I'm going to share this is I'm just going to walk you through my process that I had last Friday. So here's what went down for me. It was one of those days where it felt like everything hit at once. I was sitting at my computer in the morning and my parents had just gotten into town the night before, and when my parents are around, I want to spend as much time with them as possible.

But it was a Friday, I was working. And so I came down to this desk right here and I started looking at everything that was on my calendar plus all of the things that weren't my calendar that I had neglected, that I'd overlooked. And I just felt it. I had my builder reaching out to me that morning with some major decisions that needed to be made. My daughter was moving out of her apartment and she realized that her move-out date was two days earlier than what she had originally thought. And so we had to get her out by Saturday and I told her that I would help her with that.

My parents were in town. I told you that. I also have some big work projects that we are working on that there's a lot of moving pieces and it seems like that's always on my mind. On top of that, we are moving soon. And so I was thinking about all of the things that need to happen in order for us to move. And I just felt it. I just felt that big sense of overwhelm. So what did I do? What I did initially was counterintuitive to what my brain was telling me to do. My brain was telling me, you've got so much to do, you need to hurry. You're never going to get it done. And all those thoughts did was increase the feeling of overwhelm. So I did the opposite.

I went and ran a bath. I know. Crazy. But it worked because that's the thing, when you are feeling that sense of overwhelm and panic, you are in a state of fight or flight, your sympathetic nervous system is turned on and you can't think clearly. You literally are trying to survive that moment and you need to be able to access that clear thinking, that level-headedness that clarity. And the way to do that is to stimulate and turn on your parasympathetic nervous system. You can do that by taking some nice deep breaths and just getting really present, realizing in this moment I'm okay. You can do that by going for a walk. You can do that just by getting outside and getting some sunshine. You can do that maybe by calling a friend and talking about something that's totally irrelevant to anything that's on your to-do list. But anything to calm you down is going to allow you to access answers and solutions and possibilities that you cannot access when you are in a state of fight or flight.

So for me, I went and took a bath, lavender salts and all. 30 minutes of just soaking. And as I sat there, I have this beautiful tree outside of my window and I looked outside and there was this little bird perched on the branch. And it was a little windy that day and the wind was just rushing around this little bird and she just sat there unaffected. And I was like, "I want to be like that bird." I want to be able to find my stillness, my calm even when the world around me feels so chaotic. And so I got out of the bath and the next thing I did before I started doing anything as it relates to my to-do list, I asked myself this very important question. And the question was, "Tonya, who do you want to be today? With everything that's happening, who do you want to be?"

Because that's what we need to understand who you're being is up to you. No matter what's happening around you, you get to decide. And I knew that I wanted to be calm, I wanted to have fun. My parents are in town and I knew I wanted to be productive. And so I used those three words to guide my thinking because in order to feel calm, in order to have fun, in order to be productive, I can't sit around thinking you're never going to get it done. You should feel guilty because you're not with your parents right now. You're going to disappoint a lot of people. That's leading me further away from what I really want because what we want at the end of the day is always a feeling.

And so I practiced getting into that feeling state. Right after I got out of that bath, the next thing I did is I wrote down everything that I thought I needed to get done. Everything. I wrote it all down, a whole list of things. And some of the things are far out. They're the projects that I'm working on, but I wrote it all down. Now a lot of this is in my Asana because that's what we use for our project management, but I still wanted to write it down and get it out of my brain. So wrote it all down.

And then I went to what I used to call the three Ds, but now I call it the four Ds because one of my brilliant School of Self-Image members added an extra D and I actually love it. But the three Ds is my framework of how I go through my list of things to do. And the three Ds, now four Ds are called delete. That's number one. What on that list do I not need to be doing? What on that list am I doing out of a should? That really isn't something that's going to really make my life better. Maybe it doesn't align with my values, but for whatever reason, I think I should do it. Those are the things we just need to delete. They're not necessary. And if they're not value-based and they're not leading you towards your goals, why are we doing them? Do you really need to go to the PTO meeting?

Now, for some of you, the answer is yes, but for some of you, you're doing it because you feel guilty if you don't. So you really need to just look at what is driving the things that you think you need to do. Is it out of passion? Is it out of love? Is it out of excitement? Is it something that's based on what you deeply value? Or is it driven out of guilt and fear? Because if you take action off of guilt and fear over, over, you're just building a life that feels like a prison. And so go through your list as I did. Is there anything on there that you just need to get rid of that you can delete? The second D is to delegate. You don't have to do everything that's on that list. You can ask your family to help maybe a friend, maybe a team member. But what on there is something that you want to be accomplished to be done, but you don't necessarily need to be the one doing it. So that's the second D.

And then you need to have a plan of how you're going to delegate it. Do you need to send an email? Do you need to pick up the phone and call someone? So delegate. That's the second D. The third D is to delay, meaning, you know want to get it done, but it's not a priority today. You can put it on the calendar for the future, but you know that there's a plan for it. It's in the future so you don't have to clutter up your mind with it and it's going to get done because you've put it for a future date.

And then the final D is whatever is left, delight in it. You are choosing to do it, so why not delight in it? And so that is how I filtered through. And so I had a list of things that I was going to delight in. Now, some of these things are big. They're big projects, right? And a lot of times, and I can see how this can be so overwhelming for people, and it's why I love the Dream Atelier, it's the process of breaking things down into such tiny doable steps that it feels easy.

And a lot of times when I'm feeling overwhelmed, it's because I haven't provided my brain the clarity that it needs. It's a big thing sitting in my head without no plan, without being broken down. And so when I looked at the things that I'm choosing to delight in, I was like, "Okay, which of these just needs to be broken down?" And there were quite a few on there that I needed to break down into easy, doable task that I know I can accomplish. For example, we are working on the member journey within the membership. And it's a big project, but when I break it down and I schedule thinking time, and then during that thinking time, I know I want to accomplish X, Y, and Z, and I give my brain that clarity, then it doesn't feel so overwhelming. I'm like, "Oh, I can do that one little thing I can do."

And so that's what I did. I broke everything down into the smallest step and then you have to schedule it. Now, fortunately for me, a lot of this was in Asana. So a lot of my work on that particular day was just managing my mind because I'm like, there's already a plan for most of this. But for anything that I had neglected to put on my calendar, I started to look at where it could fit. Now here's what's really important. When you are scheduling, you need to schedule what is the result that I'm going to create during this time because a lot of times we'll schedule things like I'm going to work on my book, for example, and your brain's like, what does that look like? What does that mean? So you sit down during that batch of time that you are going to work on your book, but you don't really know what you're trying to accomplish. Are you going to write an outline? Are you going to write the first chapter? Are you going to write the introduction? Are you just going to use that time as a brainstorming session?

So when I'm scheduling, I schedule results, I schedule, here's what I want to create during this time. And so that's what I did. I looked at all of the things that I was delighting in and I'm like, "Okay, what are the different results that you need to put in your Asana so that you have that clarity?" And I will tell you all, going through that process, it's such a relief because you know you've given yourself a plan. You know that you have provided yourself clarity so you don't have to sit around and think about it. I'm going to work on that on Tuesday at 8 AM, so I don't have to think about it right now.

Now I can go in, enjoy my parents, now I can go help my daughter. But when you don't provide your brain that clarity, your brain's freaking out, your brain's like, oh my God, is she going to get it done? We don't have a plan. We don't know what's going on. And so it's so important to provide clarity for yourself that can help eliminate a lot of the overwhelm because how many of you are just sitting around overwhelmed because you haven't told your brain what you want to create and how you're going to do it. The results that you're going to focus on creating. Doing that just gives your brain and your nervous system so much relief. They're like, oh, I trust that she's got this. Now that you've done all of that, I can tell you one of the big reasons why women are overwhelmed is because of perfectionism.

We overwhelm ourselves by trying to be perfect. And my whole philosophy is that a complete is better than an incomplete. So when I'm scheduling for myself, I give myself a block of time and I'm like, "I'm going to complete this." And I trust that what I create during this period of time is good enough for now. Now will I want to improve it later? Yeah, probably depending on what it is because as we grow, so does our capacity and so does our creation, but we have to start somewhere. And so many of you are procrastinating, which just adds more to the overwhelm. So many of you are trying to be so perfect. So you're spending a lot of time researching and taking classes and collecting a lot of information and consuming without creating. And that just leads to more overwhelm because in the back of your brain, your brain's like, are we ever going to get this done? Can I trust you to actually follow through and complete this project that you keep talking about and you keep thinking about?

And so we have to let go of this idea of perfectionism. And I just trust, especially when it comes to my business, I always do the best I can with what I have in the moment and who I am in the moment knowing that I'm going to continue to learn and to continue to grow. And I trust that it will speak to the right people. If someone's looking for the perfect version of me, they're not my people. I don't want to attract people like that because it's an impossible standard to live up to. Now, do I want to do excellent work? Yes. Do I want to give it my best? 100%. And I trust that what I do is my best in that moment. And I will tell you all, giving that gift to myself has released me to create more than I ever thought I could create and to produce results that I didn't think I could ever produce because I was in such a world of perfectionism all those years ago. So that's number one.

The second thing that I want to offer you when you feel like you're drowning in your to-do list, we can begin to fantasize about the day when it's all done. And here we are feeling overwhelmed. And there's this big gap between where we are with all of our to-dos and that fantastical day when we think it will all be done. And that can create so much misery because we want to be there, but yet we're here. And here's what I want to say to you. When you're done, you're dead. Hear me out. A friend told me that years ago, and it was such a light bulb moment.

There will never be a day when it's done until the day you take your final breath. There are always going to be things to do. There's going to be life to live, and sometimes life is hard, and that's okay. We're not here for it to be easy all of the time. Those hard days can grow us.

But when we're resisting them, when we're thinking that there's going to be a day where they don't exist, and then we keep on living being a human and days are hard sometimes, we can start to feel disappointment. We can start to feel overwhelmed. We can just start to feel a lot of negative emotion because we're wanting to be somewhere that doesn't exist. And so I just embraced, especially last Friday, I'm like, "Oh, here I am living life. And you know what? I have lots of things to do and I'm going to delight in them because this means that I have goals. This means that I'm living my life. It means that I'm a human. And there is never going to be this day Tonya, when you're done. That day will be when you take your final breath."

And just reminding myself of that just allowed me to relax. And then I thought, "What I want to do today, what is most important today?" And there were a couple of work things. I got back to my builder. I went and had some time with my parents and I explained to them, "I'm going to go help my daughter," their granddaughter move. And everything was okay. It was all just a lot of drama in my own head, creating all of it. And so by getting clear, taking that bath, deciding who I wanted to be, sitting down and getting it all out of my head onto paper, prioritizing, deciding what didn't need to be done, what I could delegate, what I could delay until a future date, and then what I wanted to delight in that day, giving my brain that clarity helped.

And then just to remind myself, "Tonya, you're never going to be done. So stop trying to get to that place that doesn't exist and learn to enjoy the day that you're in." And just like that, instead of drowning in my to-do list, I started celebrating all of the things that I get to do that I'm blessed to do, all of the things that I'm choosing to do. And that was a game changer, my friends.

So if you ever feel like you're drowning in your to-do list, you're not alone, and bookmark this episode, come back and listen to it. And know that no matter what is happening around you, you can be that little bird. You can find that inner calm, that inner serenity, that inner peace, and then go get to work.

Have a great week, my friends and I will see you on our next episode. Cheers.

Hey, before you go, let me ask you something. Are you stuck in a loop of dreaming and doing nothing? Are you sick and tired of waiting for your happily ever after? Listen, it is time for you to ditch, waiting for someone to save you waiting for someday, and put that crown on your head. It is time for you to create your own powerfully ever after with my free masterclass. I'm going to teach you three moves to unleash unstoppable desire, make bold decisions, and finally create what you want. So stop wishing and start doing. Go to schoolofselfimage.com/after, and let's kickstart your dream life. It's free, it's fast, and it's way more fun than sitting around waiting for a frog to kiss you. I'll see you in the class.

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Motherhood - it’s a wild ride, isn’t it?

It starts with the sweet feeling of tiny fingers wrapping around yours, the frantic changing of diapers, and the constant worry over every sniffle and sneeze. Sleep becomes a luxury, replaced by a fierce love that fuels you through the exhaustion.

Things change quickly. Soon, you’re fretting over the outfit hidden under that oversized coat as they head out with friends, your heart both thrilled with their independence and a little sad at the fading need for your constant presence.

Runny noses transform into broken hearts, the kind that only a mother’s hug can mend. There’s a bittersweet joy in witnessing their triumphs – the wobbly first steps, the winning tennis match – and a deep ache when they face setbacks, scraped knees, or rejections that sting your heart just as much.

The guilt is a constant companion. Am I doing enough? Am I setting them on the right path? The questions circle endlessly, a nagging doubt you fight every day.

But through it all, you grow too. You learn alongside them, navigating uncharted territories together. You don’t have all the answers, but love propels you forward. It guides you as you face every challenge, pushing you to be the best mom you can be (and carrying the nagging feeling that you could be doing more).
Motherhood isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about showing up, heart open, ready to learn alongside your child. There will be messy moments, and tears shed on both sides. But grace, that quiet strength born from love, will carry you through.

With love,

Give Yourself GraceFrom photos on social media to curated highlight reels, the perception of perfection is nearly everywhere you turn. With that as a mirror to the world, it’s easy to be hard on ourselves when we “fall short” of those impossibly high standards.

The truth is, no one is perfect. And, striving for perfection often leads to feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt. Giving yourself grace is the key to a happier, more fulfilling life.

Embrace your imperfections, acknowledging that they make you uniquely human.
Treat yourself with the same kindness and understanding you extend to others.
Celebrate your successes and learn from your mistakes without dwelling on them.

By practicing self-compassion and accepting that you’re doing your best, you’ll find greater peace, resilience, and joy in life.

Hatch Restore 2 Dream MachineGetting a restful night’s sleep can be a challenge during certain stages of motherhood – and, let’s be honest, life in general. But we all know quality sleep is vital for living a life with energy, vitality, and overall well-being.

Thankfully, I’ve found the Restore 2 Dream Machine from Hatch.

It has built-in sleep sounds that promote a more restful night’s sleep and a gentle sunrise alarm that makes waking up and getting ready for the day as serene and refreshing as possible. It’s an essential part of my self-care routine – and a beautiful addition to my bedroom.

Prchase the Hatch Restore 2A Love Letter to All the MamasMoms don’t get enough love. Too often, they’re the unsung heroines, tirelessly supporting and nurturing their families without the recognition they deserve.

In this heartfelt episode, I’m showing my love for all the incredible moms who deserve to be celebrated more than once a year. Allow me to shower you with the gratitude you deserve; perhaps you’ll be inspired to show that same care and appreciation to yourself. This is my love letter to all the mamas.

Listen to The Podcast// TheEDIT

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Let me paint you a picture: Paris, a cozy café, and me, mesmerized by a group of effortlessly chic women enjoying pot de crème. I couldn’t help but feel intrigued yet puzzled.

You see, I’d been on the dieting rollercoaster for what felt like forever, and it had taken its toll. Every bite was a battleground, and certain foods, like pot de crème, were strictly off-limits.

When I got home, I did something drastic – I chucked out every diet book cluttering my shelves. It was a liberating purge, let me tell you.

And guess what? That marked the beginning of a whole new chapter. Instead of counting calories, I started counting blessings. Instead of denying cravings, I learned to listen to my body.

Over the next five years, I embarked on a journey of self-discovery and self-love. And guess what? It worked!

Now, I’m bursting with excitement to share the one thing key thing that changed everything.

Join me at my upcoming free webinar, The Slim Secret, where I’ll spill the beans (and who knows, I might even let you in on some insider knowledge!).

So, if you’ve ever felt trapped in the dieting maze or struggled to make peace with your body, this webinar is for you, my friend. Just one hour of your time could be the start of something truly transformative.

À bientôt!

Shift Your Beliefs From Limiting to LiberatingYour beliefs about weight loss don’t have to hold you back. Did you know that they can actually propel you forward? Mind-blowing, right?

When you cling to limiting beliefs like “I have no willpower” or “I’ll always be overweight,” you create a self-fulfilling prophecy. And, it’s almost inevitable that you’ll stay stuck.

But by consciously shifting your beliefs to more liberating ones, such as “I trust my body” or “I am capable of effortless weight loss,” you open yourself up to new possibilities.

As you rewrite your inner narrative, focus on your strengths and the journey ahead. You’ll discover a path to weight loss (or whatever your goal may be!) that’s rooted in self-love, compassion, and a profound trust in yourself.

Unlock Your Weight Loss Potential: The Slim Secret You’ve Been MissingWhat if there was a completely new weight-loss approach that no one talks about? An elegant, effective approach that, I’m going to guess, is like nothing you’ve ever tried before.

It’s not a restrictive diet, exhausting workout routine, or weight loss pills. It’s the approach that allowed me to finally reach my ideal weight – and maintain it for years – all without the diet drama.

If you want to shed the weight once and for all and actually enjoy the process (I promise, it’s possible!), join me for The Slim Secret webinar.

You’ll discover:

The epiphany I had while sitting in that French café that caused me never to diet again – it turns out it’s backed by science
How to become the expert of your own body and stop giving all your power to the diet gurus
Why those massive diet and lifestyle overhauls are doomed to fail (and what really works instead)

Don’t miss this opportunity to unlock the secrets to effortless, lasting weight loss.

The Slim Secret

Thursday, May 9, 2024

3PM PT / 6PM ET

(Replay available)

RSVP for The Slim Secret3 Weight Loss Myths Debunked with Laura HintonThere are lots of weight loss myths out there that keep us stuck in an endless dieting and deprivation cycle. But today, I’m going to set the record straight.

Join me and our incredible School of Self-Image community manager and coach, Laura (who lost over 50 pounds), as we debunk three common weight loss myths holding you back.

Whether you’re struggling to lose weight or don’t know who or what to believe, this podcast is packed with game-changing insights that will revolutionize your approach to weight loss.

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Listen to the Full Episode:Creating Intentional Self-Image Events for Personal Growth

Self-image events play a crucial role in shaping our identities, as discussed in the podcast episode. These events can be intentional or unexpected, and reflecting on both types from our past is essential for personal growth and self-awareness.

Intentional self-image events are experiences or activities that we consciously choose with the purpose of changing our self-image and identity. Tonya Leigh explains that by setting extraordinary goals and immersing ourselves in new environments, we challenge our existing beliefs, push beyond personal boundaries, and facilitate the development of new skills and perspectives. These intentional events are designed to push us out of our comfort zones and help us evolve into a new way of being in the world. Embracing intentional self-image events can be a catalyst for personal development and lead to a more empowered and fulfilling life.

Join in to explore how moments, both intentional and unexpected, shape our identities and help us evolve personally.

Episode Details:02:58 - Understanding Self-Image Events

04:03 - Childhood and Self-Image Formation

06:09 - Conflicting Identities: Pageants and Church

07:03 - Overcoming Negative Self-Image from Bullying

08:05 - Gaining Power Through Understanding Self-Image

10:02 - Adult Unexpected Self-Image Event

12:10 - Cognitive Dissonance and Self-Image

14:08 - Adapting Self-Image to New Realities

17:13 - Negative Self-Image Events and Recover

19:00 - Compassion in the Face of Self-Image Challenges

20:05 - Creating Intentional Self-Image Events

27:45 - Intentional Self-Image Events for Future Growth

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello, my friends. Welcome back to the podcast. I don't know about you all, but I am loving this spring weather here in Charlotte. It is so beautiful. And it's not too hot yet. Things are blooming. We are getting ready to move into the house, which is super exciting. So, my environment right now is a little bit chaotic because I have boxes everywhere and it's that awkward in-between. I talk a lot about this within the School of Self-Image membership, but I feel that in my own life right now, it's like that space between where you were and where you're going. And it's messy, it's chaotic, but it's necessary for change. And so, I'm experiencing that right now in my environment. It's very awkward to look around and see a little bit of chaos.

But I'm embracing all of it because life is not always neat, and organized, and beautiful. Life is about all of it. And I've just come to the understanding that embracing that is the secret to true fulfillment. We don't have to fight the awkward in-between. In fact, the more you fight it, the more you stay in it. So, I'm just embracing all of it right now. And also being really excited to get settled. I haven't been settled in a long time. In fact, I would say it has been over a decade since I have felt settled. And I've chosen that intentionally. I have loved the freedom of not owning a home up until now. I have loved the travel, I've enjoyed all of it. But I'm at a season in my life where I just want to settle. I want to nest. I want to just be in a place for a bit.

Now, that doesn't mean I'm not going to travel. I will travel because I love traveling. But right now I want to travel to this new house and just take a deep breath and really take it in. Over the past week, I've been thinking about this concept of self-image events. These are the events that happen in our lives that shape our identity and we've all had them. And I think it's really powerful to look at them and to ask yourself, were these intentional events that I created for myself on purpose? Or were these unexpected self-image events? Because what I've realized is that a lot of people have just experienced many unexpected self-image events, things that they would not have chosen for themselves, and they continue to live in that identity.

If you think back to being a child, you were told certain things, you were treated certain ways, and those events shaped your identity. And a lot of people without this awareness that you can actually reshape your self-image. They just continue to allow the world to shape them versus them shaping themselves on purpose. To do this exploration, it's essential that you go back to your childhood, and you look at the events that you can pinpoint that shaped you. And hopefully you'll find positive experiences. But you'll also, most likely, if you're human, find negative childhood experiences that shaped your identity. And it's important for you to understand how your identity has been created. So, when I think back to my childhood, one of the biggest negative experiences that I can pinpoint was the experience of being raised in a Pentecostal Holiness Church, where I experienced a lot of guilt and a lot of shame on a regular basis. I always felt like I was sinning and I was going to go straight to hell.

And that shaped an identity of a woman who's anxious, a woman who always feels like she's not doing enough, she's not good enough. And just having that awareness of where those thoughts and beliefs about myself came from has been truly powerful, because now I realize that I can reshape that. Now, on the other hand, one of the events that had a positive impact on my self-image was being in beauty pageants. Now, there was a negative aspect to that and that was feeling like you are in competition with other girls. You are constantly comparing yourself. And so, that was not the positive part. The positive part for me was getting up on stage and being comfortable being seen. Being comfortable getting up there and felling and realizing that I survived it, not being afraid to get up and do my Liza Minnelli cabaret and miss a note. It had a very positive impact on me.

Now, I know some people have questioned this, so I'm going to go ahead and address this right now. I've heard people ask the question, how is it that you were raised in a Pentecostal Holiness Church and yet you did pageants? And that's a really great question. It was very confusing even to me. On one hand, in the church, I wasn't allowed to wear makeup. I could not wear swimsuits in mixed company. There were a lot of things that were forbidden in my religion. But then once or twice a year, I got to participate in these more worldly events called pageants. So, when I think about this through the lens of self-image events and how those two extremes shaped me, it's fascinating because what it led to was me being willing to be seen, but me also feeling like I was always doing it wrong, that it was never good enough, that somehow I was going to be punished for it.

And then you throw in the event of me getting beat up in my freshman year of high school by a group of girls who cornered me in the bathroom after I had won a pageant and they were making fun of me. And it becomes so clear. I realize now why when I first started my business, it felt very unsafe. I thought women are going to come after me and I was never doing it good enough. And I felt like I was always going to get in trouble. And yet I had evidence that I could be seen, that I had the ability to fail, that I could get up on stage and perform, and talk, and be very visible, and yet I was going to get in trouble for it. And so, when I first started my business, I didn't have the awareness that I have now as to why it felt so hard.

But now that I've processed this and I understand these events and how they shape me, that's when I got my power back. I now had this understanding that it was just this scared little girl in me trying to protect herself from the world. But as the adult me, I've got me. I was just coaching someone in the membership the other day and I'm like, "Listen, the work that we're doing is about you being the protector of yourself, so that scared part of you feels safe, because she knows that the adult part of you has got your back." Because as an adult woman, not that a group of women could not come and beat me up, because it could still happen, but the likelihood of that happening is very slim. The closest I'll come to that most likely are a bunch of anonymous women online talking about me behind my back. And that's a whole different podcast episode.

And I know that I can handle that because I have processed and I understand these self-image events. Now, it's not that it doesn't trigger that part of me, but I now have the tools to navigate it. And so, when you think about your childhood experiences, think about the specific events that shaped your identity. Who did you become as a result? And I want you to look for the positive too, because a lot of times when we're doing this work, we only want to look at the negative because that is usually what screams in our heads. That's usually the part that's like, "I need to protect myself from the world." But you'll also find some positive experiences. Maybe it was a teacher that you had that told you that you were an amazing student or how smart you were. Maybe it was a vacation that you went on with your family and how you started to see yourself differently as a result.

So, look for those events in your childhood that shaped your identity. The next self-image events that I encourage you to look at are the ones that you experience as an adult that were unexpected. These are the ones that come along and oftentimes rock our world, because we didn't have a plan for them, we didn't know they were coming around the corner, and they changed our identities. For some of you, it could be losing a job. Maybe you became pregnant unexpectedly. Maybe you received a life-altering diagnosis. On the other hand, maybe it was a life-changing conversation. You met someone and they said something that challenged your own identity, that challenged the way you see the world. Or maybe it was coming into money unexpectedly. I had that happen to a friend. Unbeknownst to her, she was in her uncle's will. And when he passed, she found out that she was a millionaire. Was very, very unexpected.

It could be an opportunity that comes along that you didn't expect that changes you. A great example of this is years ago, I was asked to be a part of the Monaco Luxury Network, which was a think tank for luxury brands. And just being offered that, knowing that someone saw me in that way, was a huge identity crisis because I yet didn't see myself that way. I felt like such a fraud. I was like, they have no idea. I don't speak French. I didn't grow up around luxury. I felt like they had made a huge mistake and that I was going to be found out. It caused a complete crisis. And that's the thing. Many of you may believe, oh, if it's a positive self-image event, it's going to feel good. But anything that challenges your identity is going to be super uncomfortable because you're going to have so much cognitive dissonance around it.

Cognitive dissonance is that uncomfortable feeling that you get when you realize that your thoughts and your beliefs don't align with each other. So, on one hand, I was playing around with this belief of I deserve to be here. I can do a good job in this role. And on the other hand, my brain was like, "You're lying. You don't belong here. This isn't your area of expertise." And so, it created a lot of discomfort. And this discomfort often leads people to change one of the conflicting elements to reduce the dissonance because we always want to stay in mental harmony. This is why when I'm coaching women, I always keep this in mind and I always ask them, "Does this feel true? Can your brain get around this new belief?" Because if not, it's going to backfire. This is why positive affirmations often don't work, because there's too much distance between the two thoughts.

Thinking back to my own example, my discomfort was this clash between this self-image that I had about myself, the country girl that grew up in a trailer, with this new environment that was offering me an opportunity to step into, it challenged my self-image. It felt inconsistent with my sense of self at the time leading to the cognitive dissonance. So, what do you do when you have a self-image event that you want to embrace, that you want to step into? Well, you have some options. Number one, adapt your self-image, embrace the new opportunity, and gradually over time, adjust your self-image so that it includes this new aspect of your identity. And this is the work that we do within the School of Self-image, because if you don't, you will sabotage yourself over and over. And so, for me, this was about looking to my past and reframing it as a source of strength and resilience, and looking for how my past had actually set me up perfectly for this situation.

And we all get to retell the stories of our past to be supportive because it's just a story anyway. The story that I tell here about growing up in a trailer and growing up in the deep south, yes, those are facts, but the context around them, I have control over. And so, in this situation and throughout my adulthood, this has been my approach. Instead of backing away and avoiding the cognitive dissonance, I embrace this potential new reality and gradually over time, work on catching self-image up to this new reality. I see this in all areas of life.

Some of you have been praying and hoping, and setting intentions for great love, and then this great person comes along and you have a lot of cognitive dissonance around it because of your past. You'll begin to have thoughts like, "This is too good to be true. This surely isn't going to work out. This isn't as good as it seems to be." And if you don't address that, you will reject the new situation. You will sabotage it, you will walk away from it. Let's talk about how this applies to weight loss.

Right now we are running the slim self-image within the membership, which I love this group of women. It's so much fun supporting them. And shaping their self-image around this new identity of being a healthy, vibrant woman who's not constantly focused on weight loss and therefore many of them begin to just shed the weight. But I know from experience, if you lose weight and yet you don't change your mindset, there's going to be so much cognitive dissonance between your beliefs about yourself and your actions. You're going to be believing that you will always struggle, that you won't be able to keep the results up, and yet you're over here taking action trying to do it. And so, you're fighting against yourself. The answer is not to back away from what you want but to adapt your self-image.

I see this with money. I've experienced it with money. You've created a level of wealth for yourself, and yet because of past experiences, your self-image hasn't caught up to it yet. And so, you may find yourself worrying. You may find yourself thinking, "This is too good to be true. I can't keep this up. This is not going to last. I don't know what I'm doing." If you watch your mind, you will see the battle between the old self and the new self. Which one will win? The one that you nurture. The one that you give attention to.

And so, for me, this was an interesting one because I remember when my accountant actually emailed me to say, "Congratulations, you made a million dollars this year." And this one was really fascinating because I didn't have a big emotional reaction. It was almost like, "Yeah, I know." And the reason being is that I had spent so many years feeling what it would feel like to make a million dollars in my business in a year. The brain doesn't know real from imagined. And because I had imagined it for so long, when it finally happened, I didn't have cognitive dissonance around it. I felt like, of course, this was going to happen. It's been happening in my body for years. But what I didn't expect was the cognitive dissonance of seeing myself able to do that year, after year, after year. Now, what I started to do was exactly what got me to the million. I just started to imagine and feel, what is it like to have a company that is healthy, that supports others, that is able to pay really good wages and benefits?

I've started to feel that back then, which has allowed me to relax around money. Now, I have had a lot of money stuff come up, a lot of cognitive dissonance. And I have so much compassion for myself. And this is what I want to offer you all when you have these self-image events, I think what a lot of people do is they start shaming themselves and they start being hard on themselves because they are having reactions to it that maybe aren't pleasant. Be compassionate with yourself. And if you go back and you look at your childhood self-image events, you'll understand why you are having these reactions to these new events and offering yourself compassion will help you move through it so much more fluidly without fighting with yourself. And that's what I do. I continue to do. I'm like, of course you're having dissonance around this. Of course this feels hard.

Look at some of these events that shaped you in the past, and I'm telling you, just approaching it from that lens helps me move through it so much more quickly. So, that's the first thing you can do. You can adapt your self-image, which I strongly encourage you to do. But you can also just reject the new situation because remember, your brain's going to try to find harmony. And the way your brain will most likely try to find harmony is for you to just reject it so you don't have to feel that discomfort of growth. But if this is something you truly want to do, I don't want you to reject it. I want you to step into it and adapt your self-image. The third thing that you can do is to seek commonalities. If you're experiencing cognitive dissonance, look for the ways in which your background and this new opportunity share common values or experiences. And that'll help you bridge the gap between your current self-image and the new situation. And it could help you find a sense of belonging and in the process, reduce the cognitive dissonance.

Looking at my own example, one of the ways that I was able to rationalize this in my brain is I realized that my upbringing. Although it was very frugal, we didn't have a lot of money, but there was an emphasis on quality and craftsmanship. Like my mom would make my clothes, we had our own garden, so we had quality foods. And I realized there was a similarity between that and the luxury industry where high quality is important and craftsmanship is valued. Also, creativity and self-expression. I grew up with the most creative mother. In fact, in my town, they called her Martha Stewart. She had a catering company at one time. She had a florist. She sold home interiors. I don't know if you all remember that company where I would literally go with her into people's homes and she would show them how to decorate.

My mom was a hustler. She did what she needed to do to make ends meet. And she can make anything. She is the most incredible seamstress. One year for my Christmas gift, she handcrafted me a porcelain doll because there was one that I wanted that was too expensive. And so, she figured out how to make a porcelain doll. She painted it and made the clothes for it. And so, when I started to think about that, I realized that there was a lot of commonalities between this luxury lifestyle and the creativity that's involved with what my mom instilled in me. And then finally, I thought about customer service and relationships, which was very important in our home. My dad was a door-to-door insurance salesman. My mom had several businesses, small businesses in our town. And I watched how they valued relationships, how they treated their customers.

They had a strong sense of empathy. They were always going above and beyond. And they instilled that in me. And when I thought about the luxury industry, that is one of the core components of luxury brands, how they treat their clients, how they build strong relationships with their clients. And so, when I started to look for the commonalities, it lessened the cognitive dissonance which allow me to entertain saying yes to this opportunity that would shape my self-image in a whole different way. And so, you can either adapt your self-image, which I highly recommend. You can reject the situation, or you can find the commonalities that will lessen that cognitive dissonance. Now, for the negative self-image events, these are the things that come along and rock our worlds in a way that probably brings us to our knees and makes us wonder, how will I go on? That creates so much fear about the future.

One of the best tools that I can offer you and those situations comes from my mentor, Martha Beck. She has a brilliant tool called the Change Cycle, and she describes the four stages of change. And she describes it in terms of squares. So, square one is called Death and Rebirth. This is when you experience a self-image event that challenges your beliefs, your identity, your way of life. Again, this can be a job loss, loss of a loved one, a relationship ending, or a health crisis. And it can also just come from a gradual buildup of dissatisfaction or a sudden insight that makes you reevaluate your entire life. And with square one, the death part of it is referring to the ending or shedding of an old identity, an old way of being. And when we go through death in this way, it is very painful and disorienting. And you're almost forced to let go of familiar patterns, and beliefs, and identities. And you may feel lost, you may feel confused or overwhelmed by what's in front of you.

But the rebirth represents the emergence of new possibilities and potential for transformation. And while it's so uncomfortable and it's so challenging, it offers an opportunity for growth and reinvention. People in this stage are asked to explore new ways of thinking, new ways of being and living that align with their truest selves. So, when you're in square one, you most likely will have a lot of discomfort and uncertainty, because you're ending an old way of being an old identity. You are going to be doing a lot of questioning and reevaluating. You may question your beliefs, what you value, and you're going to want to have a deeper understanding of yourself and your purpose. And it also includes the openness to change. When you're in square one, you are almost forced to be open to new ideas and possibilities.

And here's what I want you to know with square one. As uncomfortable as it is, it has so much potential for growth. It is setting the stage for your personal reinvention. And on the other side, what I have found time and time again through coaching women through this square and my own death and rebirth experiences, is that there's an authentic and more fulfilling way of life. On the other side of it, if you're willing to go through it. What a lot of people do is they fight it. It's happening to them, and they are fighting it, they're denying it. And oftentimes during square one, you may need therapy. You may need someone to guide you through this because you're probably dealing with a lot of really intense emotions that you don't even know how to process.

But I love Martha's quote, her mantra for this square. Her mantra is, I don't know what the hell is going on, and that's okay. Have you ever felt that? You're like, "I don't know what's happening right now, and that's okay." Now, I want to move from unexpected self-image events to intentional ones. These are the ones you create for yourself to change yourself. These are the ones I want you to be thinking about as you look towards the future, because a lot of people don't create these for themselves. They just go through life letting life happen to them with a lot of unexpected self-image events that shape their identities versus them shaping their self-image on purpose by creating self-image events. So, intentional self-image events are experiences or activities that you consciously choose with the purpose of changing your self-image, changing your identity. These events are designed to challenge your existing beliefs, push you beyond your personal boundaries, and help you facilitate the development of new skills, new perspectives, and ultimately a new way of being in the world.

This is what I love. This is what I live for. This is what we do within the membership. So, let's talk about how to create these intentional self-image events. They're very important because events are always happening. And if you're not mindful, as I was saying, you're just going to be reacting to the unexpected events of life. But I want to encourage you to create them intentionally. So, the first thing I want you to do is to think about areas for growth. Maybe you want to build self-confidence and social situations. Maybe you want to become a better public speaker. Maybe you want to be more creative in your life. Maybe you want to have more fun and more play. And then set an extraordinary goal. An extraordinary goal is a goal that's outside of the ordinary. And if you want a self-image event that's going to change you, you're going to need an extraordinary goal to do that. That's why that's the very first thing that members do when they come into the school of self-image.

Think about it this way; what is a goal that you can set for yourself that will require a new you to achieve it? Meaning the current you, as you see yourself, is not capable of achieving this goal. You will be demanded and asked to step into a whole new identity in order to achieve it. That goal is going to require that you create intentional self-image events. Maybe it's you signing up for a marathon. I remember running my first marathon, and that changed my identity. Because I grew up thinking I wasn't that athletic. I didn't play sports. And so, running and completing a marathon was a huge identity shift in how I saw myself. So, choose an extraordinary goal.

The other way to create self-image events for yourself is to immerse yourself in completely new environments. In fact, I'm going to call these extraordinary environments because they are so far outside of your ordinary environment that you feel comfortable in that they will challenge you. You'll experience a lot of discomfort. And that is what is required to change your self-image. I think about the events that we put on with the School of Self-Image, and I love putting these women in a room and offering them a completely new way of seeing themselves and seeing the world. Which by the way, we are going on tour members get ready. I don't know what day this podcast is coming out, but tickets are about to go on sale. So, I cannot wait to see you all at the SOCI tour. But this is why I love going to events. It's why I love to put myself in new situations, new environments that challenge my belief system, that challenge my identity because I know that if I'm willing to embrace it. If I'm willing to step into it, not run away from it, that will change me.

I think this is why travel is so important. Visiting new cultures that are completely different than yours. Sign up for the workshop or go into a fancy designer store or a luxurious hotel lobby that you may feel uncomfortable in at first. But if you embrace it and you continue to go into those places, you will realize that you have always been worthy to be there. You are deserving to be anywhere you choose to be. And that's how environments when chosen intentionally and consciously, can create self-image events that change us. So, I hope this episode has given you some things to think about, some tools to help you navigate those unexpected self-image events, as well as encourage you to go out there and create your own. Create those situations, those events that will change you, that will grow you, that will make your life better. Have a beautiful week, my friends, and I will see you on next week's episode. Cheers.

Before you go, let me ask you something. Are you feeling stuck? Like you're running in place but never really getting anywhere? What I want you to know is that there's nothing wrong with you. You are not broken, but your approach probably is. If you're ready to stop making the same mistakes, engaging in the same behaviors, and discover the key to unstoppable momentum, join me for my free masterclass called Powerfully Ever After, where I reveal three hidden shifts that will crack open your potential and unlock your dream life. Stop settling for almost or someday. This is your chance to create your powerfully ever after. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/after and join now. It's free, it's fast, and most importantly, it's fun. I'll see you in the class.

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You’re Invited To Live An Extraordinary Life!

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Listen to the Full Episode:Creating Intentional Self-Image Events for Personal Growth

Join in to explore how moments, both intentional and unexpected, shape our identities and help us evolve personally.

Episode Details:02:58 - Understanding Self-Image Events

04:03 - Childhood and Self-Image Formation

06:09 - Conflicting Identities: Pageants and Church

07:03 - Overcoming Negative Self-Image from Bullying

08:05 - Gaining Power Through Understanding Self-Image

10:02 - Adult Unexpected Self-Image Event

12:10 - Cognitive Dissonance and Self-Image

14:08 - Adapting Self-Image to New Realities

17:13 - Negative Self-Image Events and Recover

19:00 - Compassion in the Face of Self-Image Challenges

20:05 - Creating Intentional Self-Image Events

27:45 - Intentional Self-Image Events for Future Growth

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Enjoy the Show? Don't miss another episode!Pick your favorite platform below:The Self-Image Manifesto

You’re Invited To Live An Extraordinary Life!

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So, I’m getting ready for the day, casually sliding into a pair of pants I haven't worn in a while. And let’s just say they’re giving me a little more squeeze than usual. Cue the dramatic music, right?

Old me would’ve freaked out faster than you can say “size zero.” I mean, pant size was practically my North Star, guiding my every move.

But guess what? New me isn’t having it.

Sure, the scale might throw out some wild numbers, and my pants might be playing a little game of tug-of-war, but you know what? I’m feeling fantastic!

Because here’s the thing: I’ve ditched the old metrics of success. No longer am I letting a number dictate how I feel about this amazing body of mine.

Instead, I’m tuning into how I feel—physically, emotionally, spiritually. And let me tell you, it’s like I’ve unlocked a whole new level of vitality.

I’ve got more energy than a Duracell bunny on espresso. I’m feeling more alive than ever, ready to take on whatever the world throws my way.

So, to all those tight pants and wonky scales, I’ve got one thing to say: thanks for the reminder, but I’m rewriting the rules.

Are you ready to rewrite your own rules and shed what’s really weighing you down?

You do not want to miss my upcoming free webinar, The Slim Secret. I’ll share the ONE thing I changed that allowed me to finally lose weight for good.

You coming?

The Slim Secret

Thursday, May 9, 2024

3PM PT / 6PM ET

(Replay available)

Yes, sign me up for The Slim Secret.

With love,

The Power of Positive FocusWhat you focus on grows. This simple yet profound truth can transform your life.

Directing your attention towards positive, expansive goals creates a fertile ground for growth and success. Instead of fixating on restrictive results like losing weight, focus on becoming the healthiest version of yourself.

By aligning your language and energy with your desired outcomes, you unlock the potential for lasting change. Remember, every thought, word, and action carries energy. Focus on what inspires and uplifts you, and watch as your reality begins to reflect your empowering intentions.

The Slim Secret WebinarAre you tired of the neverending weight loss struggle? Do you want to ditch the diets and restrictions for good?

Join me for The Slim Secret, a transformative 60-minute webinar that will change how you think about weight loss. You’ll:

Discover the #1 reason why shedding extra pounds has been challenging

Learn where to focus your energy for lasting results

Spoiler Alert: It’s not about restrictive diets, grueling workouts, or magic pills.

If you’re ready to get off the weight loss roller coaster and embrace a new approach to slimming your body and your life, The Slim Secret is for you.

The Slim Secret

Thursday, May 9, 2024

3PM PT / 6PM ET

(Replay available)

Click the link below to reserve your spot now! Your body, mind, and spirit will thank you for taking this step towards a healthier, happier you.

Yes, I'm Ready to Learn The Slim SecretBeyond the ScaleHow do you define your body’s success? Is it solely based on the number on the scale or the size of your jeans? It’s time to break free from these limiting beliefs and embrace a more comprehensive approach to health and wellness.

In this episode, we’ll explore ways to measure your progress that go beyond the scale. I’ll share my personal journey of bidding farewell to diet culture and adopting a holistic perspective on health and happiness. Join me as we uncover the tools and mindset shifts you need to cultivate a positive relationship with your body and redefine success.

Listen to The Podcast// TheEDIT

A weekly digital magazine by the School of Self-Image

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Listen to the Full Episode:You Are Enough: Celebrating the Uniqueness of Motherhood

Drawing from her personal journey as a mother, Tonya highlights moments of doubt, frustration, and guilt she has faced. Despite these challenges, she stresses the importance of recognizing and celebrating the love and effort that mothers put into raising their children. By acknowledging the sacrifices, hard work, and dedication that mothers invest in their children, they can begin to appreciate and love themselves more.

The episode also addresses the common feelings of guilt experienced by mothers. Tonya suggests that instead of dwelling on guilt, mothers should embrace innocence - recognizing that their intentions are always rooted in love and care for their children. By letting go of guilt and accepting that they are doing their best, mothers can start showing themselves the same grace and understanding they offer to their children.

Tune in for a touching tribute to the strength and beauty of motherhood.

Episode Details:02:26 The journey of motherhood.

05:17 Motherhood and astrology signs.

12:31 Guilt and Innocence as Options.

16:18 Your needs matter as a mom.

20:01 Embracing imperfection as a mom.

Welcome to the School of Self-image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello, my friends. Today is all about the mamas. I want to give the mamas a love letter, the mamas who have little tiny ones who are keeping them up all night. The mamas who stay at home with their kids all day every day, to the mamas that work full-time jobs and feel like they don't have enough time with their kids, to the mamas who nurture other people's kids, to the mamas who maybe have adult children and now they have grandchildren. To all of the mamas listening, today's episode is for you. It is not planned. I have no notes. It is straight from my heart. We just celebrated Mother's Day in the US this past weekend, and I got spend time with my mom. And as we sat at the table on Sunday having brunch, I looked at her and I thought about our journey together as mom and daughter. I thought about when I was little and all of the sacrifices that she made for me that I didn't understand or quite frankly appreciate at the time.

I thought about how hard she worked to provide for me and my brother. And then I thought about my teenage years where I thought she was the most horrible human ever. And then I thought about the times when she was the only person I could think of that I could call and she would understand. And then I looked across at my daughter and I realized that we too have our own journey together and all of the things that I have felt and experienced during these 26 years of being her mom. And as I sat there, I just thought to myself, this is the most hard and beautiful and awful and amazing journey any person could go on, that of being a mother. Think about it. You bring this life into the world that you are responsible for. It's a part of you. You have such and hopes for this little being, and then you watch them start to grow and develop their own personality and have their own desires and wants that may sometimes conflict with yours.

And you clash, you fight, you argue, you discipline, you pray, you hope, you dream, and it just keeps going. I sometimes am just amazed that we choose to do this, and yet we do over and over again because for me personally, the rewards of being a mom, especially now that my daughter's older, far outweighs all of the moments where I thought to myself, why did I decide to do this? Can I return her? Because right now I don't like her. I love her, but I don't like her right now. And then that moment passes and the love is always there. It's always there for us mamas. We may not like them, but we always love them. But in the not liking of them and the not liking of our lives in the moment, we start to feel guilt. We start to feel a lot of heaviness around being a mother. We can lose ourselves in motherhood. We can be so hard on ourselves when we think we're not being perfect. We can blame ourselves for our little humans being humans.

And so today I wanted to offer you some thoughts, some ideas, some personal reflections that I've had that help us give back to love, that help us feel love for ourselves as a mother. Now, a big part of this podcast is going to be me talking about my personal journey as a mom, being transparent, being as real with you as I can possibly be. Because I do think sometimes we look at coaches or people on the internet where like, oh, they've got it all together. And motherhood has been the one area where I have had the least amount of confidence and the most amount of love, which makes for an interesting experience. But I decided to birth a double Aries into the world. My daughter, her son, and I think her rising sign are both an Aries, which means she is a fiery, fiery soul. She is fiercely independent. She's very opinionated, and she exhibited those signs as a very young girl.

In fact, I remember reading the parenting books because I wanted to get it right. I wanted to be that perfect parent, that perfect mother. If you looked at mother in the dictionary, you would see my face. Well, you won't see it because I did not live up to those standards. But I do remember reading, you know what? If you want to discipline your child the right way, you put them in time out. Now, I grew up in the deep south where we didn't get time-outs. We got switches, and I had made a vow I was not going to do that to my daughter. So very first time I practiced this, she's five years old, I put her in time out. Maybe she was four, four or five. I put her in time out and she picks up the chair and throws it down the stairs. And I'm thinking to myself, they didn't write a chapter about how to deal with this.

Now, keep in mind, I'm a single mom. I'm trying to be mom and dad. I'm trying to be the disciplinarian and the nurturer, and it was hard. It was very difficult. And do you know what's the most difficult for me? And it's probably what's the most difficult for you. Not only do you constantly feel like you are failing your child, but the comparison and the judgment that comes from others. In fact, even as I just said that, my young daughter picking up a chair and throwing it down the stairs, some of you may have felt some judgment. Some of you may have thought that would've never happened in my house, or yeah, my kid tried that be the last time, whatever. It's okay. I guess we all judge at times. But I've definitely experienced the judgment mostly from other mothers, which I find so crazy when we consider how hard it is to be a mom. This job is not easy.

So as a mom, when I see another mom, even though she may be doing it differently, I still celebrate her. And I have so much compassion for her because until you walk in her shoes, you do not understand. Every child is different. Everybody's experiences are different. And so when I really understood this, I stopped worrying about what everybody else was thinking. In fact, I have a friend, in fact, I have a friend that in the past would make some snarky comments about me as a mom. And then she would go on to talk about how amazing her kids are. And I found myself just always feeling like a failure around her and thinking, oh my God, I must be doing this wrong. Because Sarah's timeline has been different. For those of you who have listened to the podcast for any amount of time, she got really sick. And so she had to step out of life for four years and just really focus on health and healing. And now she's back in the game.

But I just found myself when I was around this friend, just constantly feeling like I was missing the mark, that she had it all figured out, and I was such a failure. And this isn't to blame her. She's not to blame. It was my own brain creating all of it. But I looked in my own head and I could see why I felt that way. Again, she's a better parent. She has it all figured out. I've made so many mistakes, I'm not doing this right. Does this sound familiar to any of you? And one day I just decided I was done with that, I decided that I was a great mother. I decided that everything has happened the way it was supposed to. I decided that Sarah chose me as her mom, and I chose her as my daughter. And we've had the exact relationship we were meant to have. And then from that place, I started to look for all of the blessings. I started to look for how I have been an amazing mom, how I love her immensely.

I started to celebrate all of her progress. And within all of that, I just felt this heavy-weight lift off of my chest because when you walk around as a mom, knowing how much you love your kids, and then on top of that feeling like you're constantly failing at raising them, feeling like you are missing the mark, feeling like you're doing it wrong, that's a big, big burden to carry. And I just love to get back to love. I find that when I'm in that state of love, love for myself, love for my child, love for my life, then all of that heaviness falls away. And so what would it look like if you loved yourself more as a mother, if you gave yourself grace, the same kind of grace you give your kids and probably everybody else? What if you extended that to yourself? What if you didn't expect yourself to be perfect, but you expected yourself to do the best you can at any point? And sometimes that best may not seem like the best, but it is at that point in your life.

Approaching motherhood from that place, from that energy, it makes it so much more enjoyable. It's hard to enjoy something when you are constantly telling yourself you're failing at it. It's hard to enjoy something when you are constantly reminding yourself of how you're missing the mark. All of that's a construct of the mind. And so as a love letter to you, I really encourage you to decide today that you're an amazing mom, that you know love your kids and you're always doing the best that you can. That leads me to my next point that I want to talk about, and that is the guilt that we experience as mothers. We have guilt over our reactions. We have guilt over our decisions. We have guilt for not spending enough time with our kids. We have guilt for not making them dinner every single night of the week. We have guilt about letting them sit in a wet diaper too long, or we have guilt about letting them go out with friends.

It's like it's everywhere. Guilt is always an option, but do you know what else is an option? Innocence. Really think about that. Innocence means harmless in intent. And as loving moms, we never have bad intentions. It's always our best intentions. And so knowing that you can begin to drop the guilt, guilt is not required to be an amazing mother. Do you know what else is it required to be an amazing mom? Making your life all about your kids. I have coached so many women who have forgotten who they are. They have forgotten what they love and they want to get back to that. But they have this internal conflict of I can't be a mom and also have my own needs, my own life outside of motherhood.

And I'm here to offer you. You absolutely, 100% can. In fact, I want to challenge you to consider that by you doing that, you are going to set such a healthy example to your kids how they don't have to lose themselves into parenthood. So moms, hear me. I want you to remember this mantra. Your needs matter too. Taking care of yourself, enjoying life outside of your kids is not selfish. If anything, it allows you to show up better for your children. Aren't you happier when you are taking care of yourself? Aren't you happier when you are doing things that bring you joy? Not that your kids don't bring you joy, but let's face it, 24/7 focused on our kids, that can become exhausting and we can lose ourselves. And the more we lose ourselves, the more we turn to our kids and to motherhood to find our meaning.

And my experience has been that the cycle is driven out of guilt. You want to be a good mom, so you overcompensate. You make your kids your entire life, but if you take a step back, you can see how it's being driven out of the wrong energy for the most part. Now, there are some women who that's what their choice is and they love that choice, but for the majority of us, we want a life outside of our kids. And we even feel guilty for saying that. We think that makes us a bad mom. But I'm here to offer you, it makes you a human. It makes you a woman. You're a mom, yes, but you're also a woman who has needs and unique desires outside of motherhood. It's okay to explore those things. It's okay to make time for those things. And if anything, it's going to make you an even better mom.

This is one area that I do feel like I did a good job in. There are other areas where my brain tries to convince me that I didn't. But when it comes to having a life outside of motherhood, I always did. I had my hobbies, I had my business, I had friends, I traveled, and I found a really good balance between being a woman and a mother. And Sarah's told me on several occasions that she's so glad that I gave her that example. Because I think when we think about our children, especially our daughters, we don't want them to be all consumed by their own kids. We want them to have a full life. And guess what? They need to see that example from you. So if you have any guilt, any reservation around doing the exploration of your own desires and needs, I want to offer you that your needs matter.

This isn't just about your kids and your family. They need you to be happy and strong, and that can only happen if you take care of you. The other thing moms, is we don't have to do it all by ourselves. It is okay to ask for help. It doesn't make you weak. It doesn't make you a bad mother. It makes you a human. And I miss those days where a village would come together to help you with your kids. Times have changed because it seems like we're trying to do this in our own little small bubble, and it's hard, but all you have to do is ask for help. There are people out there who want to help you, who want to support you, and it's okay. In fact, I don't think it's just okay. I think it is healthy because we need each other.

I also want to offer you that it's okay to not be okay. It's okay to not like your children sometimes. It's okay to have negative thoughts about being a mom. It's okay. In fact, not only is it okay, I think it's quite normal. And I think we need to normalize these conversations because again, I think that guilt can grasp us whenever we start thinking negative thoughts about our kids or negative thoughts about situations, or negative thoughts about being a mom, that is normal. You will not meet any mother if she is being open and honest that won't say, there are times that I wish I could pack my bags and just move away. Yeah, I'd probably come back, but sometimes I fantasize about it and that's okay. What's not okay is you beating yourself up for having those thoughts. What's not okay is the immense amount of guilt and shame you may feel for being a human being.

It's important that you acknowledge your emotions. It's important that you recognize sometimes, yeah, this is really difficult and I'm struggling. And that might be when you want to reach out and ask for help. You may want to find a therapist or a coach, or you may want to ask people in the community, Hey, can you come over? I really need a break right now. I think sometimes we fantasize motherhood and we're like, oh, it's going to be baby carriages and cute clothes and birthday parties and ponies, and then reality hits, and we're like, what happened to this fantasy that I had in my head? And you start to have all of these negative thoughts about what have I done? I'm doing this terribly. I don't like my child right now. I wish I could just leave. And that's normal. That's okay. It's part shattering your fantasy and it's part just sheer frustration.

But recognize that you're a human being and you're doing a lot. And sometimes it's the most thankless work. Does anyone walk up to you and say, thank you for being a mom today? Chances are you may not have heard that even this past year. Well, maybe you just heard it on Mother's Day, maybe once a year you hear it, but we don't often hear that, and we're dealing with a lot. So it's normal that you're going to be frustrated sometimes. It's normal that you're going to have some negative thoughts, but again, what's not okay is you beating yourself up for that. Oh my God, I could keep going on this topic. I told you this is totally off the cuff, no notes just talking from my heart. But the last thing that I want to say is this. You are enough. Really, let that sink in. You are enough. Please let the idea go of being a perfect mom. She does not exist. I have yet to meet one, which is very relieving.

I've met those who tried to pretend that they are, but I know that they're not because we're human beings. We're not perfect. But you're a good mom. You're doing your best, even if the house is a mess, even if you've been serving mac and cheese for the last four nights, even if your kid's failing at math, you know what? You're still doing a good job, mom. You're not here to be perfect. You're here to love. You're here to learn. You're here to grow right alongside your kids. I think about Sarah Hatter when I was 22, I was a baby myself, doing the best I could, and there have been a lot of bumps and bruises and mistakes made, but those mistakes have been opportunities to learn. How else do we learn? Don't beat yourself up for your missteps and don't use these mistakes as a reason to tell yourself that you're not enough.

The mistakes you learn as a parent, they're there to teach you what you can do better next time. But do you know what else you've made? A lot of great choices. You have done a lot of amazing things as a mom. Do you ever spend time thinking about that, celebrating that? Probably not. And I really encourage you to, because you are a good mom and your kids, they are so lucky to have you. Have a beautiful day, my friend. I'll see you on next week's episode. Cheers.

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Listen to the Full Episode:Transforming Your Relationship with Food and Exercise: Insights from Laura Hinton

Weight loss can be achieved by changing our eating habits and our relationship with food, rather than fixating on strict diets and clean eating. Laura Hinton shares her journey with Tonya Leigh of losing 50 pounds by shifting her mindset around food. She stressed that she didn't have to eat only "clean" or "good for you" foods to lose weight. Instead, she focused on consuming the same foods she had been eating but in moderation and with a fresh perspective.

Laura's story underscores the importance of impartial evaluation and self-acceptance when it comes to food choices. She mentioned transitioning from self-judgment to self-love, which ultimately yielded more effective results in her weight loss journey. By approaching food with love and grace, she was able to make sustainable changes without feeling deprived or restricted.

When individuals shift their focus from self-criticism to self-acceptance, they are more likely to make healthier choices, listen to their bodies, and approach weight loss from a place of empowerment rather than punishment. This shift in mindset can lead to enduring results and a more positive relationship with food, exercise, and self-image.

The 3 Big Weight Loss Myths:

Myth #1: Clean Eating for Weight Loss

Myth #2: Exercise Intensity and Weight Loss

Myth #3: Self-Criticism and Weight Loss

Talking Points:00:51 Weight loss myths debunked.

05:44 Body image and weight struggles.

10:31 Society of immediate gratification.

14:47 Surprising lessons from weight loss.

17:43 Relationship with food changes.

26:05 Liberation from food obsession.

29:26 Debunking clean eating myth.

34:58 Exercise mindset and expectations.

38:35 Exercise as punishment mindset.

Useful Resources:* Sign Up for the Slim Secret Webinar: https://schoolofselfimage.com/slim * Join The School of Self-Image Now: https://schoolofselfimage.com/join * FREE Download: https://schoolofselfimage.com/self-image-manifesto/ * Sign up for the weekly Edit: http://schoolofselfimage.com/edit

Connect with Self-Image Coach, Tonya Leigh: Website: https://schoolofselfimage.com * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tonyaleigh * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TonyaLeighOfficial * TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thetonyaleigh * YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TonyaLeighOfficial DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:*Do you struggle with your weight? Do you find yourself depriving yourself, maybe being hard on yourself and in a cycle that you just don't know how to get out of and yet you want to lose weight and you don't know another way, but you know dieting is not working, you know the constant food obsession is not working, and you want a new approach? If so, you're going to love today's episode because I'm bringing on a special guest and she is going to debunk three common weight loss myths that most of us have, but not after today. So let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach Tonya Leigh.

Hey friends, welcome back to the podcast. I am so excited about today's episode because I'm doing something that I don't normally do, which is have a guest on the podcast and I cannot wait for you to meet her and for her to share her knowledge about her weight loss journey and three myths that she is going to debunk today for you all. But before I bring her on, I do want to let you know about something that is coming up very soon. It is a free live webinar that I am teaching called The Slim Secret. This is the missing piece to weight loss that so many of us don't have.

And I want to warn you, it is not a diet. It is not a food plan. It's not an exercise routine. It is a way that me and my guests today have lost I don't know how much cumulative weight together, but we've kept it off for years. And so we would love for you to join us for that webinar. All you have to do is go to schoolofselfimage.com/slim and get signed up to join us. Now for our special guest today, I want to bring on Laura Hinton. She is our community manager for the School of Self-Image membership, and I've had the opportunity to work alongside her for how many years now, Laura?

It feels like forever.

It feels like forever. I think it's been about one and a half now.

One and a half years and she has been such a valuable asset to the membership to our team, and I'm just so excited for you to be one of the first guests I've ever had on the podcast. So welcome.

Excellent. I'm so honored to be on the podcast, so thank you for having me.

You're so welcome. I'm really curious how you found the school.

Yeah. So I was in coach certification training back in 2000, or sorry, back in 2020. And at the time one of my fellow coaches who was in my cohort and now good friend, she had recommended your podcast to me. And of course I dove in, went all the way back to the beginning and started listening. I think it was French Kiss Life at the time. I was so drawn to everything that you were sharing and the perspective that you took on this mindset work. And so I was a casual listener back starting in 2020, and then in April of 2022, I was attending a live business event that you were speaking at.

I was like, yeah, this woman's amazing. She's brilliant. Whatever she offers next, I don't care what it is, I'm in. I'm just joining whatever it might be. And so I think it was just a couple weeks after that experience, you offered the Royal Treatment Workshop. And so I joined for that and automatically signed up as an annual member. And so from that point, I was in the membership absorbing all of the content and just loving every minute of it. And it was later that year in November of 2022 where I had made the decision that I was no longer going to be running my own coaching business anymore and I wasn't really sure what I was going to do next.

But I was actually at a retreat that we put together with that same group of coaches that I got certified with. And at that retreat, I saw a post from your team that you were hiring for a coach. And at that retreat, I just decided I think this could be the next thing. And all of my coach friends were like, you would be perfect for this. It's such a good fit. You should definitely apply. Promise us that you're going to send in your application. So I decided then and there at that retreat I would follow through and just apply for the position.

And so I ended up having an interview in early 2023 and I'm now here today.

Oh my God.

Here I am.

I'm so glad that happened that way. And I remember we got so many great applicants. It was such a hard decision for me. But when you just have that intuitive hit, it's like you can't quite describe it, but I was just, when I was looking at your videos and reading through your application, I'm like, I think this is my girl. And here we are. So thank you so much. And one of the things that we have in common is that we have struggled with our weight and you started this work as a weight loss coach and you've helped many women successfully lose weight, but you had your own journey of weight loss.

And so I'm really curious for you at what age, because I think we can all look back and we can sort of pinpoint an age where all of a sudden our bodies became a problem that we needed to fix. What age were you when that happened?

So I think the first time that I really had a negative thought about my body that I can clearly pinpoint and remember, I was 10-years-old. And I grew up dancing. I did specifically ballet training with the Colorado Ballet's program for kids through middle school. And then in elementary and in high school I did elite-level competitive dance. And while there are so many things that dance has taught me and so many parts of my character and personality that have been developed through that in such a positive way that have served me really well, for sure, one downside to that is you spend hours and hours every single day staring at yourself in the mirror, looking at the girl or boy next to you and comparing and constantly getting the criticism of something about your body is not enough, essentially.

And so I remember being in dance class at the age of 10, looking at my body, looking at the girl's legs next to me specifically and being like, huh, my legs are much larger than hers. There's something wrong here. I should look more like her. And so I think from that kind of teenage age of being in this environment, I started some eating habits that were not probably particularly healthy. And it really was this kind of constant message of your body's not right. It's not enough. What you're doing with your body isn't enough.

And so I think even from teenage age, I really had the idea that my body should be different. I should lose weight. I should be something other than I am, which is hysterical looking back on it because I was a normal child with a normal child body and there was nothing wrong with it whatsoever. Nobody would've ever looked at me and said, oh, that girl is overweight or unhealthy. And so that definitely just being in the dance environment really shaped not only my body image, but my self-image of this idea rooted in not enough and that has carried with me for many, many years.

And so I think the first time that I was an adult woman, and I'd always been kind of going back and forth trying to do this, trying to do that, trying to lose weight. But the really pivotal moment was when I got engaged and that was 2008. And I suddenly had this fear and panic that I was going to be "fat" for my wedding. And I thought the wedding and the photos and the memories and everything, this is so important. This is one of the most important parts your life. It's such a big moment. You have to look your best. You have to look better. You have to lose weight.

And so from pure fear and terror and lack, I spent the next year of this engagement time working, doing the traditional diet things, restricting, the traditional weight loss methods. I bought an elliptical and put it in my house and spent hours doing cardio, which I hate doing, just to lose the weight. And I did. We got married in 2009 and I was happy with how I looked, and I was very proud of what I had accomplished. And I'm certain I couldn't have put on that wedding dress 10 days later.

I just immediately started gaining the weight back and then just kept gaining more and more and more progressively each year for the next 10 years basically. So really the first time that I found something that finally worked was in 2018, that's when a friend of mine and another fellow coach had introduced me to mindset work. And I was like, oh, this is the missing piece of the puzzle that I've literally been searching for since I first wanted to lose weight back in my teenage years.

So how long did that process take you once you found? Because that's the question I often get from women. They're like, how long did it take you? And I think we are such a society of immediate gratification. We want the quick fix now. We want to lose weight by the wedding. We want to lose weight by bikini season. And we have just set ourselves up for this toxic cycle of white knuckling and getting the weight off, but realizing at the end it's not sustainable because of how we went about it and we're miserable.

I remember starving myself literally down to a size two, and I thought, this is going to be when I am most happy. This is going to be when I feel so proud of myself. And I got there and I realized I am miserable because I know I can't sustain this. But when we offer women, here's the real key, they sometimes can get a little frustrated because it doesn't happen so fast, but it happens and it's sustainable. So I'm curious for you how long that process took for you.

Yeah. So it was about seven months for me to lose about 50 pounds, and that brought me back to the same weight that I weighed at my 10-year anniversary that I did when I got married. And that was such a huge accomplishment. And I feel like from there I really struggled with could I ever weigh less than this because I know the torture I had to put my body through to get to this weight in the past, it seems like a miracle that this has happened fairly easily to get to this point now what would have to happen for me to weigh less than this.

And so it took probably another six months of really just working on my mindset to lose an additional 10 pounds from there. What was the bulk of my weight loss I think happened at a good rate. And then it was really some deep work to work down to that final 10 pounds, if that makes sense.

Yeah. And we see this in the membership, women will lose the weight and because in the past when they've done it, they did it through deprivation, through a lot of self loathing, they beat themselves up. But they use our process and they start to lose weight, but there's this moment of this seems too easy. This seems to be so backwards from the way I've done it before. And so we spent a lot of time coaching women around trusting the process, trusting their bodies. Did you have that when you were going through this of like, ah, it's almost too good to be true?

Absolutely. And I think at first when I was starting to lose and it felt easier than anything I'd ever tried in the past, it did have that moment of this is too good to be true. But what I coached myself into was that, oh, I just never had the right tools before. Of course, it was hard before you didn't have the tools that you actually needed to be successful. And I've said this before and I think it's a good image to kind of get this concept, but it's like when you're trying to paint a room that has 20-foot tall ceilings, but you're only given a three-foot ladder and a short little paint roller, and you wonder why you can't paint all the way to the top of the wall.

And for me, learning the mindset tools is what gave me the 15-foot ladder and the roller with the extension on it so that you could reach the entirety of the wall and it's like, oh, I just finally was given the proper tools that I needed. Of course, that's why this felt easier. Of course, it's why it was such a struggle in the past. I just didn't have the tools that I needed.

That's such a beautiful way of painting that picture because that is what it is. Having the tools and trusting that the tools that got you here will continue to allow you to live this way and live in this lifestyle. So that's so beautiful. I'm going to remember that one. What has been the most surprising thing that you've learned from this journey with weight loss?

So 100% the most surprising thing me was that I am in charge of the way that I feel. So prior to really understanding this mindset work and learning about how my thoughts and my emotions and my actions are all interwoven and interconnected, I really just lived my life as if everything just happened to me and I had no say about it. So things would happen, challenges would surface, life would come up and I would just say, well, I guess you're going to do your best. And to me, that was numb out and pretend like none of it's happening is my solution to that.

So to learn that life can still happen, things can still come up, challenges and obstacles are inevitable, but that I actually have power and control over how I experience all of them, how I move through them based on the way that I'm thinking, the meaning that I choose to assign to things, the interpretation that I have, that was shocking to me because nobody had ever taught me that growing up. And still to this day, it's why I love being a coach because I'm like, why on earth we taught this in school? It would be very helpful information to have.

But I didn't know it until I found this work. And so I thought I was coming to this with the aim of losing weight, and I was so surprised to find that I found a way of feeling better across every area of my life, creating results in every area of my life that I'd been wanting to create for so long. And it all just starts with a thought.

Yeah. That's so true. I see so many women get really discouraged and they're like, I don't want to try to lose weight anymore. I failed over and over. And what I try to tell them is that the work that you're going to do with this new approach, it is going to have such a big impact on every area of your life because it's deep work that we do within the membership around weight loss. And I know for me, in losing weight, that was one of the benefits as well. It's like who I had to become and the positive impact that had on my relationships, on my business, on my overall wellbeing.

And so when those are on the fence about do I really want another weight loss goal, I think it is worth doing this work because of the impact it's going to have in every single aspect of your life. And I think you would agree with that.

Absolutely.

Yeah. How has your relationship with food changed? Because that's a big topic. You can't talk about weight loss without talking about food. And so what has that journey been for you and how do you balance eating for your body and also having a good time? Because I've been out to dinner with you, we love to eat, we enjoy a good dinner. So how do you find that balance?

Absolutely. Well, I think the biggest thing that changed for me in terms of my relationship with food is that food is no longer a source of comfort. It's no longer a tool for me to not feel bored, to not feel sad, to not feel stressed. Food is no longer what I go to as a means to feel better. And I think all of that really comes again from the skill of knowing that the way that you feel actually comes from your thoughts. The way you feel is not changed by food. It may be temporarily, but long-term, whatever you were feeling is going to come back even after the cookie or the cake or the glass of wine because your thoughts about that original thing are still the same.

The food just gives you a break from that. But it's not a long-term fix. It's like a bandaid for a broken arm. It's not really that helpful. And so I think that shift of learning that food isn't my go-to method for changing or managing my emotions has really allowed me to then still have pleasure with food, still have pleasure with eating, but know that the pleasure and the fun and all the great things come from myself innately. And so in terms of social eating and still having fun, I love food. I only eat food that is absolutely delicious to me.

There is never a time where I'm forcing myself to eat something because I think I should or because it's the right type of food that's going to allow me to lose more weight. That never crosses my mind. Food has really become an equal playing field where there aren't good or bad foods, there's just food, and I can make a powerful decision about what I choose. Again, knowing that I love food, I only eat things that I feel are delicious. And also this food isn't here to help me feel less stressed or less sad. And so I love a 90/10 rule for still enjoying your life.

I think there are messages out there, and I definitely fell into this for a while, where it's like you should consider food only fuel. Food is only fuel for your body. And if food were cardboard, you'd be fine with it because you're just fueling your body and that's what you do. And to me, while there's people who get to that point and I tip my hat to you, it's not really where I wanted to go or what relationship I wanted to have with food. I still want to find pleasure in food. So for me, I like to think about it as 90% of the time I know and trust myself that I'm showing up and making powerful decisions with food.

I'm eating in a way that does align with satisfaction and pleasure, but also I know is a decision that I'm going to feel proud about that aligns with me being the woman and having the body that I want to have. 10% of the time, I'm going to be a human being. I'm going to experience human life. I'm going to be at a birthday party, I'm going to be at a New Year's Eve celebration, whatever it might be, and I'm going to make decisions that are probably not helping me lose weight, but that are allowing me to be a human being living a human life because I think that's important.

And I think being past rooted in perfectionism and this all or nothing mentality and this mindset where we think, oh, we can just never have a drink again or we can never have treats again, that never worked for me in the past. And so-

It doesn't work for most people.

No. It's like again, if you make that decision where your future self is never going to have a drink or have sugar or whatever it might be again, then great. I checked in with my future self and she was like, no, girl, you still like wine. You still like to have a cookie every now and then. So I just fully trust myself that 90% of any given timeframe, I'm going to be showing up, making powerful decisions with food that I love, and I love my reasons for why. And the other 10% of the time I might overindulge. And I love my reasons for why.

It's important to love your reasons for doing both, and I just know that the 90/10 split is absolutely enough. It doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't have to be 100% of the time in order for me to be living the life that I want to live while having the body and the health that I want to have as well.

As you're talking, there's just such freedom, and that's what I want everybody to hear. And you lost 50 pounds and you've kept that weight off.

Yeah.

And to me, this is about liberation. It's not about deprivation because deprivation doesn't work. One of the tools that we teach is like the wild child and the dictator. And if you deprive of that wild child within you for long enough, she's going to come out swinging and she's going to want all the cookies, all the wine, all the Cheetos, whatever she can get her hands on. And so it is about finding your flow. It's about finding your balance that allows you to get the results you want while you're also enjoying your life.

And I feel like we've both gotten to a place where it's crazy to me, I don't even think about food until I'm hungry. And there was a day where I could not have imagined that this would be my life because probably like you, I was obsessed with it. I was always thinking about what's for lunch? What can I eat? What can I eat? It was just a constant mental obsession. And the thing that I always think about, and I'm curious to hear this from you, is that when you have dieted for so long and you're obsessed and it takes up so much of your mental space.

When you start following a program like the one that we teach, a lot of women start to have a little bit of sadness and this void because they've got now this open spot that has been so consumed with dieting and food, they're like, what do I do now? And I think that's a beautiful thing because then you can start to think about what do you want for your life. Outside of food and dieting, at the end of your life, what do you want to sit back and tell your grandkids about, that you were a great dieter?

Or do you want to tell them about all of these other adventures that you were able to go on and to experience because you found freedom from this one thing that took up so much of your energy? And so I'm curious, did you have that when you decided, you know what, I'm done with dieting, I'm just going to focus from the inside out? What was that like for you?

Absolutely. I mean, I think back to the way that I used to shop at the grocery store, and that used to be a two-hour activity because every single thing I saw and was interested in would also require me looking at the nutrition facts. How many calories are in here? How many grams of sugar? What is the protein content? Is this good? Is this bad? Which list does this belong on? Is this approved? Is it not? And the amount of drama that went into shopping for food at the grocery store alone took up so many hours, so many hours, so many cubicles of brain space.

And so even to just look at that one experience and to now where I just go to the grocery store and throw things in the cart that look good to me, that I know my body feels good eating, things that are interesting to me. Just that change alone is so liberating and so freeing. And thinking about just eating food with trust versus now I need to journal this down and I need to record and I need to write down how many calories did I burn and how many calories did I consume and do the math, and was it enough. I am so glad to not have that as part of my daily routine anymore.

And I think it was a big, big, big shift in how I tried to lose weight so many times in the past versus the experience I had doing it through mindset. So that said, I think once you're noticing that you have more clarity, more space, more room in your brain, and it isn't so over consumed with this food drama all the time. For me, a lot of that was deciding what I wanted to do next in my career. Because at the time I was losing this weight. I had just sold my prior business and was deciding what I wanted to do next. I didn't have a lot of ideas of what I wanted to do, of what I was interested in.

My vision of my future was not so clear in this process of clearing out the cobwebs related to food issues, now I had the space to decide what I wanted to do next, which was to get certified as a coach and to be able to help people in the same way that I had just helped myself and to be able to create a business out of that and start helping so many other women. So I feel like I would not have had the availability or the energy in my brain to be able to create all of that had I still been just in this constant obsession with food and eating all the time.

Yeah, I think so many people can relate to that. I even think about all of the hours I spent at Barnes and Noble. Because remember when we had Barnes and Noble, I think we still have them. But I would just go and sit and read diet books. It was like I got a high, the next diet book that came out, I'm like, oh, this is going to be the one. And I was addicted to dieting. It was in a way, it was like a dopamine hit. It was fun for the first day or two thinking about this new diet that may work, but the hours I could have walked, I could have learned new languages.

I could have done so much with that time. And that's what I want everybody to think about if you weren't dieting, what would you be doing with your life? Where would you be focused? Where would you be growing? What would you be doing with your family, with your friends? It's like a really good question. Because when you start to pull dieting out of it, you're going to be revealed so much about yourself. So let's talk about the three myths that you're going to debunk for us today.

I can hardly wait.

Let's go. Start with number one. What's the number one myth that you want to debunk?

All right. Well, this one was so deep-rooted into my upbringing and years of traditional diet mentality, and that was I have to eat only "clean, good for you foods" to lose weight, which also means what I'm eating now isn't good enough. So like I said, a lot of my upbringing was rooted in not enough, not good enough, not doing enough. And so for me it was this idea of whatever you're eating right now is total garbage. You need to get rid of it all. I think that's such a common practice within traditional diet culture is like, okay, we picked up the book at Barnes and Noble, we're starting on Monday, and first thing we're doing this weekend is clearing out every bad food that's in our pantry, that's in our refrigerator.

We got to clear it all out, get rid of it. We're just not eating that anymore. We got to tell the whole family, get them on board, husband, partner, kids. There's no more Cheetos allowed. They've all been thrown away. We're all doing this and we're eating carrots and hummus for the next six months. And I did that so many times, so many times.

Poor family, they get whiplash. They're like, oh, next week we're doing keto, so no more carrots because they have carbs. Now we have to do keto.

Get ready. Yeah. My husband would be like, no, not doing it. So yeah, I think the one single thing that really was the catalyst for this weight loss through mindset practice for me was that I just started with, I'm going to take all the foods that I'm eating. I didn't eat terrible. I wasn't somebody who went through the McDonald's drive-through, or I didn't eat terribly, but I didn't eat. We talk about sexy foods in some self-image, and I wouldn't say all of my foods were very sexy by any stretch, but I wasn't a horrible eater.

And I just thought, okay, if I just start with taking the same foods that I eat in any given week and I just eat a little bit less of those, what's going to happen? Instead of trying to go to this place where it's like everything that I'm doing right now is bad and not enough, that means I'm bad and not enough, and we've got to start from ground zero and do this huge leap from nothing to all. That was what really was helpful to me. And I lost that 50 pounds eating the same foods that I had been eating 10 years prior. Still had pizza, still had mac and cheese, still had steak and potatoes.

All the foods that I ate were the same. I just started looking at when am I eating because of real true physical hunger. I had to re-associate myself with that. I had no idea. I had lost complete touch with my body. I had no idea what true hunger was. So starting to get back in touch with that and then finding what times am I eating for real true physical hunger and when am I eating for something else, for an emotional reason, for a habitual reason. And just starting to slowly minimize that habitual and behavioral and emotional eating and starting to get more in line with eating those foods from a source of knowing that my body is hungry made all the difference to me.

I did not have to only eat carrots and hummus or go keto or any of these things. I literally lost 50 pounds eating the same foods that I always had been, but just doing it from a completely different way, a completely different mindset, and really starting to build that skill of making decisions from physical hunger versus from emotional or habitual hunger.

Yeah. That's so good. And I can imagine, I'm sure it happened for you and it probably happens for a lot of people, but when you're doing that, there is that old voice in your mind saying, you're eating bad foods. You're bad. What are you doing? How did you manage that?

I think I really just believed the thought of that never worked for you before, so let's just try something different. And I noticed how on board my brain was when I was like, you can still have pizza, but instead of eating half the pizza, we're going to have two slices and see how that goes. And so knowing that that was so much more of a loving choice versus in the past where it's like pure punishment, pure restriction, I've got to beat myself into thinness and all these things, just agreeing finally, that probably wasn't a method that served me very well.

Clearly, I'd never been able to lose the weight and keep it off in the past. And being able to believe it's possible I could do this from a place of love, from a place of grace, from a place of building and self-integrity, that really brought a lot of comfort to me during the process.

Yeah. Great. What about myth number two?

Okay. Myth number two was I have to exercise like a maniac, AKA the movement I'm doing right now is not enough. So I think, I mean, I see this in the membership often where the types of exercise that we do, we categorize into enough or not enough. And some of those things include, am I sweating? Well, if I'm not sweating, then it's not enough. Did I do this for an hour or for two hours? Well, if not, if I only did it for 15 minutes, then that's not enough. Am I super sore the next day? I'm so sore, I can't even walk down my stairs in the morning.

Well, if I'm not, then my workout the day prior wasn't enough. And I think we create a category of exercise that's so unrealistic. I remember I had a period of time for probably about six months where I would go to the gym and be there for three hours. I would go for a walk that was two hours long, and it was still in my mind, oh, not enough. I should have been doing more. It's just like, no, at least for me, I don't want to be doing that. I don't want to spend six hours a day walking and at the gym. And so to me, I had such a challenging mindset around exercise.

Again, so much of it was tied to the dance that I did growing up and other I said, I bought the elliptical and would run for hours before my wedding. And all these things I, for me, and I'm not saying this is the right choice for everybody, but it was the right choice for me. I decided that working out, exercise, movement was something that needed to be put on the sidelines, put it in the jar, put it on the shelf, and we're going to get to that later. And I just focused on the food aspect and drinking aspect to lose that weight.

So I always like to say when ladies, they get injured and they're like, oh, I'm not able to exercise, now I'm going to gain all this weight and yada, yada, or I can't exercise. I can't move my body. It has limitations. I'll never lose the weight because of that. I lost that weight without doing any exercise, which to me was mind-blowing because that exercise component I felt was always a required part of the formula in the past. And it was really interesting to just prove that to myself that all of this weight could be lost just from changing the way that I eat and the relationship I have with food.

The only movement I did with my body was walking around the grocery store and running errands at Target, walking to the mailbox and back. I didn't do anything that I previously would've considered the right amount of exercise to lose weight, yet I lost all the weight. So that to me was a big deal. And since then, I've been spending the last two years focusing on reshaping my relationship with working out and with moving, and that's a whole nother story for another day. But it was for me at the time, just something that the right choice for me was to put that to the side and address it later.

Yeah. And so many people, especially in the diet industry, they use exercise as a form of punishment. Absolutely. It's like, oh, I overate, well, I'm going to have to work out extra hard tomorrow. Or I've gained some five pounds, I've got to work out. And what really changed for me is when I separated out exercise and no longer associated it with weight loss. It was now something that I did to be healthier, to feel better physically, and I didn't associate it with trying to lose weight. And also knowing that every step counts, every little thing that you do has a negative or positive impact.

And so when I gave myself the grace of even if you can go for a 10-minute walk, you're doing it for your health, you're doing it to move, you're doing it to feel better. That's when I started to reestablish a healthy relationship with exercise because I was like you, it was never enough. I could always be doing more.

Yeah. You have really helped me shift my mindset around exercise, so I have you to thank for that.

Fine. It's fun moving our bodies. It's not fun moving it to punish it. That's not fun.

Absolutely. And that is definitely where all of my past workout was fueled from was punishment. No longer.

No longer. What about myth number three?

Okay. So we've touched on this a little bit throughout the other two myths, but in my opinion, I have to be mean to myself and punishing, anything less than perfect is not good enough. And so like I said, all the other past efforts to lose weight and the way that I tend to treat myself is from a very critical and judgmental place from I think, I don't even know where I first saw this, but the kind of stereotypical sorority movie where you're going to walk into the sorority and they're going to whip out the Sharpies and start marking up your body and putting X's on all the places that are too fat and everyone's judging you.

That's literally how I looked at myself. And I have memories of just looking in the mirror and judging head to toe, this is gross. You're disgusting. This is fat. Who would ever want to see this? You better cover this up. What are you going to do tomorrow to get rid of this? This is so awful. You're the worst. And just trying to lose weight from that perspective and from that mindset feels terrible. And I think when we get into talking about the perfectionist side of things, having the I have to do it all at 100% all the time or else I'm just horrible and I shouldn't do anything.

It's like you can use that mindset to motivate you so far. I mean, you can use it for a short period of time. You might even see some results from it, but it feels so awful. There's no way you're going to do that at a long-term capacity. There's no way you are going to feel great living the rest of your life treating yourself in that way and working out and eating from that perspective of you're so disgusting. You should know better. You should figure this out. That feels terrible when you think those thoughts.

And you can only show up and take positive actions from that negative place for so long, in my opinion. So it was a big, big shift to move from the self-judgment to just neutral assessment, to move from the self-criticism into some self-love, to move from self-disgust into self-acceptance. And come at the action I wanted to take from a more loving and graceful place, I had so much resistance to it, and then I was pleasantly surprised when it actually turned out to be the most effective way to create the results that I wanted to.

I really didn't think it was going to happen. I really wholeheartedly believed I need to be mean and judgmental to myself to make things happen. And I'm so glad I found that's not true.

Yeah. It makes me think of one of my favorite Abraham quotes where they say, "There is no happy ending to an unhappy journey" because wherever you go, there you are. And you might be there in a smaller body, but if you don't change what's going on between your ears, you're not going to be any happier. And I think we've both experienced that and now we've found a better way. Well, Laura, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. And I think what I'm about to share, the members of the school will also share in these sentiments.

But it's been a pleasure having you as the community manager and really supporting women in the membership at coming to weight loss with a whole different lens of health and vitality and love, curiosity versus the way we typically come about it, which is through deprivation and struggle and being hard on ourselves. And so thank you so much for being a part of this community, and I'm excited for you all to get to come into the membership and get coached by me and Laura around the topics that we've talked about today on the podcast. So thank you again for being here.

Thank you so much for having me. Yeah. I think so much changes, even when we say, I want to lose weight versus I need to lose it. And so I think the members are so lucky to get to experience this method of losing weight with a whole different lens, a whole different perspective, a whole different approach than many have ever done in the past. And it's just so exciting to see all of the discoveries and realizations and things that they are learning and how it's really impacting the way that they are experiencing their life.

So it's a pleasure to be part of it, and I just thank you so much for letting me be there and share.

You are so welcome. And again, I am teaching a live webinar very soon. Come join us. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/slim to sign up for the slim secret. Thank you, Laura.

Thank you.

Take care. Hey, are you ready to transform your self-image but lack direction and support? If so, I'd like to invite you to join the School of Self-image. This is an exclusive monthly membership where you'll create your own powerful before and after story. Through weekly classes and coaching, you'll learn powerful techniques on how to elevate the quality of your mindset, style, and surroundings to change how you see yourself and create extraordinary results in your life. Head over to schoolofselfimage.com/join to learn more.

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You know that feeling when you're on a roll, crushing your goals, and feeling like nothing can stop you? That was me, hitting the gym hard and loving every minute.

And then, BAM! Sickness struck like a bolt from the blue.

After three days of coughing, sniffling, and binge-watching Netflix, I was officially on the mend. But even though my body was recovering, my mind was still stuck in sick mode.

The thought of returning to the gym filled me with dread. It was like my motivation had packed up and gone on vacation without me.

Inertia states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest, while an object in motion tends to stay in motion.

I knew I had to make a choice: stay stuck by fighting with where I was and spinning into frustration, or relax and take one small step to get moving.

I got up and started small – a short walk around the block. The fresh air and movement felt like a breath of life, awakening the vibrant Tonya within.

The next day, I did a gentle yoga flow in my living room. And the day after that, I returned to the gym for a light session.

the Tonya who prioritized her health, who showed up for herself, who refused to let a little setback keep her down.

So, if you ever find yourself stuck, remember this: you have the power to reclaim your momentum, one tiny action at a time.

Love,

Tune in to Your ThoughtsHave you ever been so zoned out in the car that you barely noticed the radio playing? Until… your favorite song comes on. Those opening notes hit, and suddenly, you’re singing along at full blast.

Too often, we let familiar mental tracks play like background noise – the same old tunes of scarcity, doubt, and limits. But when you pop an uplifting thought onto the playlist, it shakes things up.

Pay attention to what’s playing in your mind. Notice when negative narratives have you stuck in a funk, and then switch the station!

Scan for a new thought that amps up your confidence. An abundant mindset that opens up new possibilities. An upbeat perspective that kicks you into high gear.

You don’t have to settle for the same thought playlist on repeat. Tune into thoughts that turn you on and light you up. And makethose the soundtrack of your life.

Unlock Your Unstoppable SelfDo you feel caught in a neverending loop of ho-hum days?

The same places. The same people. The same thoughts.

If that relentless cycle of stuck sounds all too familiar, it’s time to get off the hamster wheel once and for all.

The School of Self-Image's annual membership is your path to breaking free from a life lived on repeat.

Imagine waking up each day with unwavering confidence, a clear vision for your future, and the tools to make it a reality.

When you go all-in as an annual member, you not only get access to all of the amazing content within the membership, but you’ll also unlock these life-changing exclusives:

The Slim Self-Image: Drop the diet mentality and experience liberating, lasting weight loss without deprivation. (We’re running this live very soon!)
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Invest in yourself and your future by joining as an annual member today. (Of course, you can still join us month-to-month if you want to dip your toes first.)

Join The School of Self-ImageHow to Get UnstuckGetting stuck happens to everyone. Maybe you're trapped in a dead-end job, a stagnant relationship, or an endless loop of stale routines. Whatever your version of “stuck” is, it can be a frustrating and disheartening place to be.

In today’s podcast episode, I share my strategies for getting unstuck. From conquering fear and quieting overthinking to cultivating positive habits that stick, this episode is packed with actionable steps to help you break free and start thriving.

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Listen to the Full Episode:Unlocking Lasting Peace with Your Body

Success should be judged beyond the scale and dress size. This episode emphasizes the importance of redefining how we measure success with our bodies. Host and Master Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh highlights that relying solely on the scale or dress size as indicators of success can be detrimental to our overall well-being. Instead, she encourages listeners to shift their focus towards how they feel emotionally and physically.

Tonya shares her personal journey of struggling with weight and body image issues, where she found herself trapped in a cycle of using external measurements to determine her worth. She explains that tying success to a number on the scale can lead to feelings of discouragement, fear, and obsession. By shifting the focus to how we feel each day and how our bodies feel, we can create a more sustainable and fulfilling approach to body success.

Join Tonya as she delves into finding beauty and joy in life, beyond the numbers on a scale.

Talking Points:02:25 Finding peace with your body.

10:18 - Rethinking Body Success Measurement

15:28 - Creating Intrinsic Body Success

18:10 - Embracing Imperfection and Gratitude

21:01 - Choosing Definitions of Body Success

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, Master Life Coach Tonya Leigh.

Hello my dear friends, and welcome back to another episode of the podcast. How are you doing? Today is a beautiful day here in Charlotte. Everything is turning green, flowers are coming out. I love this time of year. I find that this is the time of year of blooming, of transformation. It's very symbolic to me, the springtime. It's where the winter has ended and now things are coming to life and life just feels a little bit lighter in the spring for me. No matter where I am in the world, no matter what I'm going through, there is something beautiful on a spiritual level to this season. And so I hope that wherever you are, you're feeling a little lightness, a little joy. You are noticing the beauty that surrounds you and that you're really appreciating where you are in your life right now.

I also wanted to let you know that I have something very exciting coming up next week actually. And for those of you who struggle with your weight, who have maybe struggled for years and you keep turning to diets and shots and pills, and you feel like this is a never-ending struggle and you don't know how to get out of it, I want to invite you to a webinar that I'm doing called The Slim Secret. Yes, it's a secret. But it won't be a secret if you come to this webinar. And I'm going to be sharing the big shift that I had to personally make, and now I've coached many other women around making it that has led to lasting peace with our bodies and what I call our happy weights. And when I use the word slim, I know that that word can be triggering to some people because maybe you're thinking, I don't want to be skinny, I don't want to be slim. And listen, that is not what I'm talking about.

If you even look at the definition of the word slim, it's to rid of the excess, to slim down. And when it comes to weight, there's a lot of stuff like unconscious stuff, subconscious stuff that is weighing us down that we don't even realize is keeping us from creating this relationship with our bodies and the result that we want. And until you figure out what that is and you address that, you will continue to struggle with your weight. As someone who struggled for years, I gained over 70 pounds, I yo-yo dieted, I ended up developing an eating disorder and I thought that there would never be a day where it wasn't a struggle. And then I look at my life now, this was the piece that was missing. Because right now in my life and for years, I feel at peace with my body. I don't obsess about food.

I don't even get on a scale every so often when I go to the doctor's office. And all of that energy that I used to put into trying to have the perfect body, trying to lose weight, it has been freed up to enjoy my life more, to learn new things, to put my work out in the world. And that's the thing that people don't realize. We have a limited amount of energy, and how much of yours is going into obsessing, hating, resisting, trying so hard to lose weight. What would you do with all of that energy if that was no longer a problem? And sometimes the answer to that question is scary. I know for me it was so scary because I had dieted for so long. I had this thought when I decided that I was done with the whole diet culture, I was like, "But what am I going to do with my time?" I realized that it had become this obsession that was all-consuming.

And that's the kind of stuff I love to work with women around, figuring out what that is, and let's focus there. But until you address this one thing that I'm going to be covering in the Slim Secret webinar, it will forever be a struggle. I don't even care if you lose the weight. How many of us have lost the weight and we're terrified of gaining it back? And it's because of this one missing thing. So I would love for you to come and join us. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/secret, 60 minutes that will change how you think about your body, losing weight, and most importantly, your relationship with yourself. I am so excited to teach this webinar. And my intention is that when you attend, you are going to unlock something that you didn't even know was the real issue, and you're going to have some tools to help you begin to unravel maybe this thing that you have struggled with for years. So again, head over to schoolofselfimage.com/secret and I will see you at the webinar.

Now, speaking of bodies, speaking of weight loss, I want to talk about body success beyond the scale. Because how many of you use the scale as a measurement of how successful you are with your body? So for example, you get on the scale and it reads a certain number and you tell a story that you're doing great. And if it reads another number, you tell yourself the story that you're not doing great. That was my life for years, and it was exactly the thing that kept me stuck in the cycle that didn't serve me. It caused me to be very discouraged on most days when the scale wasn't reading what I thought it was supposed to read. And then it gave me this false sense of accomplishment when I'd lost a pound or two.

And I say false because oftentimes I would be so full of fear that it was going to come back. And then let's just face it, a two-pound weight loss could be just some water weight. And the problem was I was focused on external measurements for my own success. And it's not that we can't have metrics and things that we're striving for, but when we use those metrics to beat ourselves up or to feel worthy, we're setting ourselves up for failure. It never works long-term. And so when I was in this pattern of using external things to measure my success, I just had this epiphany that there had to be a better way. There had to be a better way to gauge how I was really doing. Because just because you lose weight doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to feel better. And if you think about the reason why we want anything including weight loss is because we're after a feeling.

You think, oh, when I lose 10 pounds, 20 pounds, then I'm going to feel, what? What is it for you? Confident, sexy, worthy, beautiful. But guess what? Those things don't come from the outside, they come from within. And so for me, it really started to change when I changed how I judged my success. And I started to base my success beyond the scale by how I felt both emotionally and physically. Because there was a time y'all where I literally starved myself down to a size two and I felt weak and I felt afraid because I knew it wasn't sustainable. I knew I couldn't keep it up because of the way I had gone about it. But when I started to base my success on how do I feel today? Do I feel confident? Do I feel proud? Do I feel joyful? Do I feel grateful? And then I started to focus on how my body felt.

Am I feeling stronger? Am I feeling more energized? That gave me something that I could bring back to my immediate control. That I didn't have to wait until one day when I've lost weight to feel like a successful human. I could begin to feel successful today by how I show up today. And this is so important you all, because so many of us have tied our emotional state for one day when, and you're constantly focused on the goal. And because you're not there yet, you're constantly feeling the scarcity and the lack of not having it yet. And that energy keeps you from creating the emotions that you need to create that are going to keep you inspired, determined. You feel let down, you feel discouraged when you're constantly focused on, I am not there yet. And let me tell you, that is just a thought.

I am not there yet is a thought that keeps you from being there yet because where you want to be is actually a feeling that I'm not there yet will never get you to. So how do you create body success beyond the scale, beyond the externals? And the way I do it, and this was the way that changed everything for me, is that I tie my success to what I have control over in this moment. And that is how I think, how I feel, and how I show up. So for example, instead of saying I will be successful with my body when I weigh a certain amount or I wear a certain size, I will say, I will be successful with my body today if I speak kindly to her, if I drink an extra glass of water, if I go for that mile walk, if I make it to the gym today. I'm doing things for my body that I have control over in this moment, in this day.

And then if I don't show up for one of those things, let's say I don't go to the gym today, I will create success with my body by being kind to myself and figuring out why. Why didn't I go? I have this belief that we're successful even when we fail if we use those failures to grow us. And so even if you fail at something, if you don't show up, if you take a moment and stop to consider why and learn more about yourself, I consider that a huge success because you will carry that lesson over with you. And then if you win, if you have a huge success, it's a day where you follow the orders that you've given yourself because out of self-love and out of wanting the best for yourself, you get to feel the goodness of that as well. But as long as you're tying your body success with a size or a number on the scale, I want you to hear me. That is not a measurement that supports you in the long run.

Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't get on a scale or you shouldn't look at your dress size. It's all feedback. But the way women have used this against themselves is not okay. Using it as a measurement of am I a good person or am I bad, am I worthy or am I not worthy, am I a success or am I failure. I feel like it's done way more damage than good. Now, if you can get on the scale and use it as a way to get to know your brain and all the stuff that comes up and working through it that way, that's different. But that's not how we use these external measures. They literally become measuring sticks for our worthiness, for our deservingness, of our success as a human being. And what if that's the very thing that's holding you back?

What if you began to tie your success with how you feel each day, with the actions that you take that support your mind, your body, and your spirit? And on those days where maybe you're not so kind, on those days where maybe you don't show up. Even in those moments, if you just stop and you watch yourself and you gain a new level of awareness, to me, again, I think that is a huge success. And I will tell you, this work is what led to me losing the weight one last time. This is the work that got me out of diet culture. This is the work that freed up my energy to go out there and create a business and to learn new things and to enjoy my life more. Because as long as the scale was my measurement of success, the way I got to feel day to day was up and down, because that's the way the scale is.

You don't weigh the same every single day. Some days you gain some weight, some days you lose some weight. But beyond the scale is a way for you to measure your success that will lead to a much more fulfilling life. Measure how you feel, measure how your body feels, measure how you're showing up for yourself today, and use all of this as simply data to learn and to grow. Because at the end of the day, what we're all after is we just want to feel better. And you'll never feel better as long as the skill or a dress size is your measurement of success. You'll never feel better when you've set up your world and your paradigm that you can only feel good if you look a certain way. Because looks change, right? Our bodies change. But when you create that intrinsic success and you measure your success by how you treat yourself, by how you feel, by how you're showing up for yourself, and even when you don't, you don't use that as a way to beat yourself up, but you use it as a way to learn and to grow.

That's when life becomes way more fun and more fulfilling. And it just so happens for the hundreds and hundreds, probably thousands of women at this point that I've supported in losing weight for the last time, it eventually leads you to the result that you're after, which is weight loss. But the way we go about it is so different. It's sustainable, it's effective, and it's way more fun. And when things are fun, you're more likely to show up for them, right? So if this is an area that you struggle with, if this is something that you want to finally be done with, if this is something that you have tried to achieve and have failed over and over and you think that it's just not possible for you, I want to tell you that you're wrong. And the reason why I know you're wrong is because I've worked with women who had that exact same story.

Some women have struggled with this for decades, and they come into the membership and before you know it, they're losing weight. And they're telling me it's different than any time before. And that's because we're not dishing out meal plans or exercise routines. You all probably know every diet on the planet if you struggle in this area and you know that experts say you should move your body more. So that's not what's missing for you. What's missing is something deeper. And that's exactly what I'm going to cover on the Slim Secret. This is work that I've been doing for 15 years. In fact, when I started as a coach, my work was around weight loss because it was an area that I had struggled with for so many years. And when I finally figured it out, I realized I don't need another diet. I don't need some other expert telling me what to eat. I need to learn something completely different. And that thing is what I'm going to be revealing on this webinar.

So again, if you are a woman who struggles with your weight, you struggle with your body, you're constantly obsessing over good foods and bad foods and workouts, and you're just tired and you really want a way out, come and join us. Go to schoolofselfimage.com/secret and I will see you on the webinar. And one last thing. If you've been judging your body success by the skill or your dress size, I want you to consider that there's a success that's beyond that, that is way more effective, way more kind. And the cool thing is you get to feel like a success every single day because it's not dependent on some future goal. It's not dependent on a number. It's something that you get to create in this moment by how you treat yourself, by the little things that you're doing to support your health and your well-being, and your vitality.

You don't have to wait to feel better. In fact, I often say, wait, W-A-I-T leads to weight, W-E-I-G-H-T. It's time to stop waiting to feel better. It's time to stop waiting for the scale to read a certain number. You get to feel better now. And when you do, when you have the tools to do that, what you realize is that when you feel better, you treat yourself better. And when you treat yourself better, you end up creating what it is that you want. And one last thing, even when my body is tired, even when I'm not feeling great, even when I haven't had my eight glasses of water, or I might eat something that doesn't feel good in my body, I still get to feel successful. I don't need to use those moments to beat myself up. In those moments, I just express gratitude to my body for doing the best it can.

I extend myself a lot of grace for being a human and not being perfect. And so I want you to realize that you get to feel successful every single day depending on how you look at yourself, how you treat yourself, the lens in which you view yourself. You're not here to be perfect, you're here to enjoy your life, to enjoy your body, to learn, and to grow. And you will never, ever achieve that again, as long as you're using all of these outside measurements as to whether you're good or you're bad. Can we just be done with that? Can we create new measurements of success that can coexist with our humanity, with our imperfect ways of being sometimes? Can we create measures of success that honor our different seasons in life? Can we create measures of success that allow us to feel it every single day, not in some future destination that we're constantly reminding ourselves that we're not there yet and using that as a tool to feel bad?

The answer is we can. And it's something that I want you all to think about. How do you want to judge your body success? And choose very carefully. Make sure you're choosing a definition of success that inspires you, that gives you back control of your daily life, that doesn't set it up so that you can only feel successful one day when. The way to create success is to feel successful now. And right now you can look for evidence of how your body is a huge success. Look at how it supports you. Look at how it breathes you. Look at how it allows you to experience the world. Look at the parts of your body that you actually love, and then extend grace and extend compassion to the parts of yourself that maybe you can't quite love yet only because of thoughts in your head, but I won't go there. But let's create definitions of body success that support, that celebrate, and that helps us to feel good today. Have a beautiful week, my friends. And I hope to see you on the webinar next week. Schoolofselfimage.com/secret. Take care. Cheers.

Enjoy the Show? Don't miss another episode!Pick your favorite platform below:The Self-Image Manifesto

You’re Invited To Live An Extraordinary Life!

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You know that feeling when you're on a roll, crushing your goals, and feeling like nothing can stop you? That was me, hitting the gym hard and loving every minute.

And then, BAM! Sickness struck like a bolt from the blue.

After three days of coughing, sniffling, and binge-watching Netflix, I was officially on the mend. But even though my body was recovering, my mind was still stuck in sick mode.

The thought of returning to the gym filled me with dread. It was like my motivation had packed up and gone on vacation without me.

Inertia states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest, while an object in motion tends to stay in motion.

I knew I had to make a choice: stay stuck by fighting with where I was and spinning into frustration, or relax and take one small step to get moving.

I got up and started small – a short walk around the block. The fresh air and movement felt like a breath of life, awakening the vibrant Tonya within.

The next day, I did a gentle yoga flow in my living room. And the day after that, I returned to the gym for a light session.

the Tonya who prioritized her health, who showed up for herself, who refused to let a little setback keep her down.

So, if you ever find yourself stuck, remember this: you have the power to reclaim your momentum, one tiny action at a time.

Love,

Pay attention to what’s playing in your mind. Notice when negative narratives have you stuck in a funk, and then switch the station!

Scan for a new thought that amps up your confidence. An abundant mindset that opens up new possibilities. An upbeat perspective that kicks you into high gear.

You don’t have to settle for the same thought playlist on repeat. Tune into thoughts that turn you on and light you up. And makethose the soundtrack of your life.

Unlock Your Unstoppable SelfDo you feel caught in a neverending loop of ho-hum days?

The same places. The same people. The same thoughts.

If that relentless cycle of stuck sounds all too familiar, it’s time to get off the hamster wheel once and for all.

The School of Self-Image's annual membership is your path to breaking free from a life lived on repeat.

Imagine waking up each day with unwavering confidence, a clear vision for your future, and the tools to make it a reality.

When you go all-in as an annual member, you not only get access to all of the amazing content within the membership, but you’ll also unlock these life-changing exclusives:

The Slim Self-Image: Drop the diet mentality and experience liberating, lasting weight loss without deprivation. (We’re running this live very soon!)
Charm the Room: Become a magnetic presence who captivates any room without fear or self-doubt. Bid farewell to social anxiety and step into your charismatic power.
The Wealthy Woman: Shatter your scarcity mindset and unlock real, lasting wealth. Prosperity and abundance await when you break the cycle of lack.
VIP Virtual Cocktail Parties: Join our exclusive community for behind-the-scenes access and after-hours conversations about living life on your own terms.

Plus, when you commit to an annual membership, you'll save big with 12 months for the price of 10.

Don't let another day go by feeling stuck or unfulfilled.

Invest in yourself and your future by joining as an annual member today. (Of course, you can still join us month-to-month if you want to dip your toes first.)

Listen to The Podcast// TheEDIT

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I've got a juicy story to share today about the unexpected life lesson I learned from... wait for it... my bookshelf!

Yes, you read that right – my bookshelf.

You see, I used to have a shelf filled with books that were basically screaming at me: “You're fat!” “You've got problems!” “Your life is a mess!”

Talk about a constant reminder of a self-image I was desperately trying to escape.

But then, I had an epiphany: I wasn't the problem. My thinking was.

So, I decided to give my bookshelf a makeover. I started imagining the future me - the one who had her life together and was confident, successful, and happy.

And I asked myself, “What would SHE be reading?”

So, I started curating a new collection. I swapped out those diet books for luscious cookbooks that celebrated the joy of food. I did keep some of my most beloved personal development books, but I added in novels and gorgeous books on art and design to spark creativity.

Slowly but surely, my bookshelf became a reflection of a woman honoring her present self with intentional support while also building a powerful future.

As my bookshelf transformed, so did my life.

It turns out the psychology of space is no joke.

So, Test, let me ask you this: what story is your space telling you?

Is it a story of limitation, of being stuck, of not being enough?

Or is it a story of possibility, of growth, of becoming the incredible person you're meant to be?

The choice is yours, my friend. And it starts with something as simple as a bookshelf.

So, go ahead. Give your space a little makeover. Surround yourself with things that inspire you, that lift you up, and that make you feel like the rockstar you are.

And watch as your self-image transforms right along with it.

Trust me, it's a plot twist you won't want to miss.

Love,

Why Surroundings MatterSurroundings shape your self-image more than many realize.

The environments we inhabit, the people we surround ourselves with, and how we speak and carry ourselves reflect powerful messages about our beliefs about ourselves.

Think about your home: an organized, beautiful space whispers, “You deserve to feel good.” But a cluttered, neglected area broadcasts, “You're not a priority.”

When you thoughtfully curate surroundings that honor the woman you want to be, you're constantly reminded to embody that vision.

Does Your Environment Reflect Your Highest Self?Your surroundings are a powerful mirror to your self-image.

The decor on your walls, the clothing in your closet, the clutter on your kitchen counter – every detail speaks volumes about how you see yourself.

At the School of Self-Image, we know your environment doesn't just shape your self-perception - it IS your self-perception made visible.

That's why, for the entire month of April, we're laser-focused on understanding what our homes are revealing about our inner world and upleveling areas (big or small).

No more tolerating decor, furniture, or items that hold you back. This is about loving yourself enough to live in a space that celebrates you, inspires you, and reflects your highest potential.

Join the School of Self-Image and discover how to curate surroundings that elevate – and celebrate – your worth.

When you join the School of Self-Image, you'll get instant access to this month’s Your Home Portrait class, plus 60+ self-image elevating courses.

Are you ready to stop settling and start embodying the essence of who you truly are?

Join The School of Self-ImageThe Psychology of Space: How Your Environment Shapes Your Self-ImageHave you ever walked into a beautifully designed space and immediately felt more confident, inspired, and empowered? Or found yourself in a cluttered, dingy environment and started questioning your own worth?

In this podcast, I'm diving deep into the fascinating world of space psychology. We’ll explore how our physical surroundings – from colors and textures to artwork, aromas, and energy - influence our self-perception. Plus, I’ll share powerful but simple environment edits you can make to start elevating your self-image right now.

Get ready to look at your environment through a totally new lens.

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Listen to the Full Episode:Illuminating Your Path: The Decision Switch in Action

Making decisions is essential for moving forward in life and creating change. In the podcast episode, Tonya Leigh emphasizes the importance of making decisions to break free from feeling stuck and to propel oneself towards desired outcomes. She discusses how indecision can keep individuals in a state of paralysis, preventing them from progressing in life. She also highlights that decisions, whether big or small, play a crucial role in shaping the trajectory of one's life and influencing the overall experience.

This episode underscores the transformative power of making decisions and highlights how each choice, no matter how small, can have a significant impact on one's life journey. By embracing the decision-making process and being willing to step into the unknown, individuals can break free from stagnation, create positive change, and ultimately shape a more fulfilling and purposeful life.

Talking Points:00:42 - The Decision Switch Concept

02:22 - Reasons for Decision Paralysis

04:38 - Overthinking and Perfectionism in Decisions

05:45 - External Pressures Impacting Decisions

07:53 - Worry and Business

08:15 - Breaking Connections with Old Self

09:41 - Team Dynamics and Decision Confidence

11:59 - Stop Self-Criticism

14:38 - Personal Decision to Build a House

17:50 - Clarity After Making Decisions

18:12 - Relationship Decisions: Stay or Go

19:05 - Comfort in Indecision

19:37 - Removing Right or Wrong from Decisions

23:00 - Investing in Personal Growth

Useful Resources:* Join the membership Now: https://schoolofselfimage.com/join * FREE download: https://schoolofselfimage.com/self-image-manifesto/ * Sign up for the weekly Edit: http://schoolofselfimage.com/edit

Connect with Self-Image Coach, Tonya Leigh: Website: https://schoolofselfimage.com * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tonyaleigh * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TonyaLeighOfficial * TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thetonyaleigh * YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TonyaLeighOfficial DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:*Have you ever felt stuck in your life, like you're unable to move forward? Or maybe you find yourself constantly wavering between choices, or worse, making the same decisions over and over again, hoping for a different outcome. If this sounds familiar, then this episode is for you. Today, we're going to talk about the power of the decision switch and how you can use it to change your life. So let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello, beautiful friends. Today we are talking about decisions, and more specifically, we're talking about the decision switch. I was inspired to do this episode because I often hear from women, "I don't know. I don't know what I should do. I don't know where I should go. I don't know if I should stay or leave. I don't know if I should move." They're facing a decision and oftentimes they are paralyzed by it, and that paralysis just keeps them stuck.

So many of you that are feeling stuck in your life right now, it's because you aren't making decisions, and therefore, life doesn't change because decisions require that you select a course of action and then you move in that direction. It involves evaluating options, considering potential outcomes, and then choosing, choosing the most suitable option based on your preference, what you want, your values, your goals, your circumstances.

These decisions can range from very simple choices such as what should I eat for breakfast to big impactful ones like changing your career or starting a family or leaving a spouse. But decision-making is the fundamental aspect of being a human, and it influences the trajectory of our lives and it shapes our whole experience.

So to have this conversation with you all, we need to first look at why are you potentially afraid of making decisions. Well, some of you are just afraid of the unknown. Making a new decision means you're going to be stepping into territory that you're not familiar with. And so that can trigger a lot of anxiety, a lot of uncertainty, and you don't yet know what the consequence of that decision's going to be. And because you don't know, sometimes you just choose to stay where you are because you know it and it's familiar even if you don't like it.

The other reason I've seen people not make decisions is because they fear they're going to fail. As humans, we have this aversion to failure and making the wrong decision. You may worry about the possibility of making a mistake or facing criticism or judgment from other people if your decision doesn't work out the way you had wanted it to. So you let the fear of failure stop you.

Another reason why you may have a hard time making a decision is because of loss aversion, which is when you are more sensitive to your losses than you are to your gains. People fear losing things more than they get excited about gaining things. A great example of this one in my own life is when I decided to start the School of Self-Image.

I'd already created a successful company. I was making seven figures. It was working at that time better than it had ever worked, but I felt so called to start the School of Self-Image. I wanted to take my work to the next level, but I could see that fear in my brain as I contemplated this decision. And so I began to really focus on all of the gains that were possible, and I had to really comfort myself when all of those fears would come up. But it's very normal for our brains to do this.

Another reason why we often don't make decisions is we're overthinking it. Analysis paralysis, when you overthink your decisions and you become so overwhelmed by the possibilities and you're just unable to make a choice. The fear of making the wrong decision will lead you to making no decisions, and therefore, no action.

Another reason why we often don't make decisions is because we are perfectionist. We have such high standards for ourselves and we fear making a mistake, and so we delay the decisions. We hope that that perfect opportunity will come along where we can guarantee a perfect outcome, but because that doesn't happen ... With decisions, you don't know what the outcome is going to be. You can guess, you can pray, you can hope, but there is no guarantee. And so often with perfectionism, you'll find yourself just delaying decisions which results in indecision.

And then the last thing that I've identified that makes decision-making so difficult is external pressure. The societal pressures, the family opinions, the cultural norms, it can contribute to this fear of making a choice. You may have that pressure to feel like you have to conform to other people's expectations, or you fear disappointing others with your choices, so you just don't make them. I've definitely been in that camp. I've been in all of these camps.

But I want to introduce you to the decision switch. I've experienced this at different moments in my life, and what I'm about to share with you is around those bigger decisions, those decisions that will change the trajectory of your life, it will change your being. It will completely pick you up and set you in a whole new way of being, and therefore, different results because our results come from who we're being, our self-image.

I recently experienced this on an emotional level. I found myself unusually worrying about my business, and it's so odd for many reasons. Number one, I have practiced being a woman who doesn't worry a lot because I used to worry all of the time. So I put myself on a worry-free diet because it was just a habitual place that my brain would want to go.

And so recently, when I found myself worrying again, I'm like, "This is so odd, especially considering that my business is going really well." I feel more excited in my business than I've ever felt. My team is happier than they've ever been. We are working on some really amazing things behind the scenes. Things are good, and yet I was worrying.

I would read a post in our group about someone, and I found myself worrying about them. It was this all-encompassing emotion around my business and my community, and that's not the energy that I want to create from. And yet, I'm a human being and sometimes I worry, but this was a different flavor. This wasn't just a worry here and there. It was almost like I had hit an upper limit.

If you've ever read Gay Hendricks, The Big Leap, they talk about in that book about upper limits and how when you're growing, you will start engaging in self-destructive patterns to keep you where you are. And for me, this is how I saw the worry. I was like, "Oh, this might be an upper limit."

And so in that moment, I flipped the decision switch. I literally said out loud, "I am no longer available to worry about my business." It is not even an option, I took it off the table. I made a bold decision, a declaration, a line in the sand of who I was going to be in relationship to my business because when you decide something, you commit to it and you begin practicing living out that decision.

Now, did the worry go away immediately? No, but every time a thought would pop into my mind that told me I needed to worry, I was like, "Nope, that's not the decision we made." I did that day in and day out and before I knew it, I realized that I was in a completely different head space. I'm not worried about my business at all right now, and I haven't been for weeks now.

In fact, one of the team members, we were on a call and she was worried about something that was going on in the business, and I was like, "Listen, this is nothing to worry about. Let's just look at it. Let's figure out what we need to do. Let's handle it." But I told her, I'm like, "I'm not worried at all." And sometimes your team just needs to hear you say that to calm them down. I was like, "I'm not worried at all about this. This is all good."

And it turned out amazing, but even if it hadn't, I know that that energy of worry is so unproductive. It doesn't create better results. If anything, you feel paralyzed, you're not as creative, you are not as productive. And so even if there's something presenting to me that my brain wants to go to worry, I just remind it of the decision we made, that switch that we made.

Because if you look up the definition of switch, it means a device for making and breaking the connection in an electrical circuit. You break the connection, you switch it, and you've broken it. A lot of you need to break connections in who you're being. You need to switch on the decision of who you want to be and break that connection. Make yourself no longer available for it.

Another interesting definition of switch is an act of adopting one policy or way of life, or choosing one type of item in place of another, a change, especially a radical one. What is the decision switch that you need to make in your life right now? One that I made years ago that completely changed my life, and it's one that so many of you need to make, is I made the decision switch of I am no longer a woman who beats herself up. It's just not an option.

I don't care if I make a big mistake. I don't care if I fail. I don't care if I act out in a way that I'm not proud of. I no longer beat myself up for being a human being. And that one decision, I remember when I made it, it seemed so impossible because I was in such a habit of being hypercritical of myself. But I remember thinking, "I don't want to be this anymore." And I made a decision, I am not going to be this. And then it was about me committing to that decision and then practicing and living out that decision.

A lot of you make decisions and then you forget about them. You're like, "Oh, yeah, I did decide that a year ago. I forgot I made that decision." And that's because you don't commit to it. You don't go all in on that decision. And then you wonder, "Why isn't my life getting momentum?" And for some of you, you're just not making decisions. You're so afraid of getting it wrong. You're so afraid of the uncertainty.

But everything you want and don't yet have is going to require that you make decisions that put you in that new place. There is no other way. And the only way, the only way to do that is to learn how to manage your own emotional life, to learn how to manage the fear. Your brain is just afraid of the unknown. It's afraid of being uncomfortable. And so it is going to fight you to convince you to stay where you are.

And the best way to get you to stay where you are is to make you so afraid of making new decisions that you either, A, don't make decisions or you just keep making the same decisions over and over, and you get to live in that familiar land that your brain can comprehend what's going on. But if you're unhappy, if you feel stuck, if you want more from your life, if you want more for you, it is going to require that you make decisions.

And here's what I've noticed, the more decisions we make, the more our lives move. The decisions create the movement, the momentum, and every decision you make, however small or big, contributes to the direction and the progress of your life. And consistently making decisions day in and day out that align with your goals and your values, they just propel you forward.

And then the bigger decisions that you make, the more you must grow. And that's why a lot of people don't make those big decisions because the growth that's going to be required, they either, A, are too afraid of doing it or they don't know how to manage it. But major life decisions, they require us to stretch our self-image.

Recently I decided to build a house, and it is almost complete. We should be moving in, in the next couple of months, but that was a decision switch that really changed me. All my life, I have prided myself in being carefree, not being tied down, being able to move through life. And I associated a home with a lot of responsibility and being burdened and all of these things, but deep down, I really wanted a home. I wanted a home base, and yet I was afraid.

I was afraid I would have to break up with certain parts of myself and some parts I probably needed to break up with. But the part of me that loves to travel and loves to go places, I didn't want to break up with her, but I had this either, or. I can either have a home and not travel, or I can travel a lot and not have a home.

Now, granted, there's so much evidence that you guys do both, right? I see my members do it. I'm like, "Oh my goodness, they have a home and they travel, brilliant. Maybe I should use them as evidence that I can do the same." But I remember sitting down with my attorney and we were just going over finances and things, and he was like, "You've got to invest in something." He's like, "You've got all of this cash just sitting there." And I felt just numb, I didn't know what to do. I was just like, "Ah."

And the reality is I was just scared. I was scared to make the decision. But the moment I signed the papers, immediately my identity changed, immediately. It was like, "Oh, now I am a homeowner. Now I am adulting officially." And it was the best feeling. It was the next version of me that I needed to step into. It's the first home I've ever owned. I'm almost 50 years old. So for any of y'all that think it's too late for you, I'm here to tell you it's not. We can do extraordinary things until the day we die.

And so that was another major decision switch. In that moment, I made a decision, and here's the great metaphor. When you think about a switch, if you're in a room and it's dark and you turn on the switch, you flip it, you now can see. And the moment I flipped the switch, I could see the path of where I needed to go, next decisions, how I need to set up things. It became so clear. But as long as I was in the dark of indecision, I couldn't see what was next.

And so I was hee-hawing around saying, "I don't know what I should do. I don't know where I should live." The moment I decided, hey, I'm buying this land, we're building a house, I flipped that switch. Now, it was also clear. And that's what I have often found out, sometimes the clarity comes once you've made the decision switch, because before that switch, you're just in the dark, so you can't see. But the moment you decide, the next steps will reveal themselves to you.

How many of you are trying to decide, should I stay or should I go? That was me for a long time in a former relationship. I was in the dark, and because I was in the dark, I couldn't see, and so I just stayed stuck in that dark room. Now sometimes the decision is, I'm going to stay, and then that light turns on and you're like, "Okay, here's what needs to happen. Here's how I need to change. Here's what needs to happen within this relationship." For me, the decision was, I need to go. And the moment I decided that, next steps started appearing.

For some of you, you're trying to decide, do I start a business or don't I? And so you're in the dark, decide and switch the light on. Either way, just switch the light on. That's what decisions do, they turn the light on so you can see what your next steps are. But the indecision keeps you literally in the dark where you can't see, you don't have to make a decision.

And some of you are very comfortable in those dark rooms. You've got your little blanket in there, maybe a little fridge you know how to get to even though it's dark. So it feels safe to you, but it's a dark room. And that's what indecision does essentially, it keeps you in the dark. And so I want to share some of my thoughts about decisions that hopefully will support you in making your own.

One of my favorite quotes by Hafiz is, "Between right-doing and wrong-doing there is a field, I will meet you there." When it comes to decisions, I've learned just to take the label of right or wrong off, it's just a decision that either will work out or I'll learn a lot from. There is no right or wrong decisions that we will make from a place of wanting the best for ourselves.

And so what would happen if you weren't afraid of getting it, quote, unquote, "wrong?" What if that wasn't even on the table? What if you didn't label it? It's just a decision, and that's what I've learned to do that has given me the courage to make more decisions in my life.

The other reason why a lot of us don't make decisions, and I was saying this earlier, is that we're so afraid of a negative consequence, and that often is because we think that our happiness is out there. We think what we're after is going to be either a result of the decision or we won't get it because of the decision. And when I finally understood that I create my emotions, not things outside of me, in a strange way it gave me the courage to make more decisions. Because I know, hey, even if I fail, even if I make a mistake, even if it doesn't work out, I can still be happy because it all comes down to the thoughts that I choose to think.

The other thing that has really helped me in making decisions and moving forward is what I call the decision after the decision, which I think is the most important one. And what that means is when you make a decision, if you don't manage your mind, your brain will immediately start causing you to doubt it, to regret it, to question it, and that can slow down your energy. It can slow you down from taking the steps towards the decision that you made. And so when I make a decision, the next decision is how I'm going to feel about that decision.

Take the house, for example. When I signed those papers, when I made the decision to purchase the lot and to sign the contract, in that moment I decided that I was going to feel confident in that decision. So when my brain wanted to offer me thoughts like, "That was a mistake. Who do you think you are buying a house?" I was just like, "No, that doesn't support my decision to feel confident in this decision."

And so I started to think on purpose to build that confidence in my decision, because nothing is worse than deciding something and then spending maybe the next year to five years doubting and regretting that decision. The decision's done, now get your energy behind it. Support yourself, cheer yourself on, be there for you, because what you don't need after you make a decision is you beating yourself up for the decision that you made.

I see this a lot with women around money. They'll make an investment, they'll buy something, and then they'll have so much guilt and shame and regret about that decision. It is done. Now, can you learn something from it? A hundred percent. I think about the time I felt like I got scammed on the streets of Aspen. I spent way too much money on these NASA-approved infrared lights that they promised was going to keep me young forever.

But I'm proud of myself because I didn't spend a lot of energy beating myself up for it. I was like, "Oh, that's good to know. Why did I allow that to happen? What was going on? How did I get pulled into that?" And what I know is it'll never happen again. So I'm glad it happened because next time it might be bigger. But sitting around and beating yourself up for your decisions is only going to make you a more indecisive woman and keep you stuck.

And so when you make a decision, even if it leads to an outcome that you don't like, don't ever use that as evidence that you don't make good decisions. I think decisions in and of themselves are good because they're teaching you. You're learning so much. You're learning what works and what doesn't work. You're learning about who you are and why you do what you do so that you can course correct more quickly maybe next time.

And so when you look at decisions from that perspective, it just frees you up to make more of them. And sometimes to get it wrong, maybe it doesn't turn out the way you want to, but what I do know is that you're probably closer to where you want to be than had you made no decision at all.

And so I want you to think about in your life, what is the decision switch that you need to turn on? Where are you tired of being in the dark? And what is one decision that you can make that has the possibility of radically changing your life in ways that you can't even imagine right now? But you have to have the courage to flip on the switch, and I promise you, when you do, the next steps will be illuminated.

Now, if you're over there thinking, "I don't know what decision I need to make," I've got one for you. Did you know that the School of Self-Image is open right now? And month after month, I have women share with us that it was the decision that helped them make so many more powerful decisions in their lives, and now they are experiencing the results of having made that one initial decision that had a domino effect in their life.

When I look back on my life, investing in my own brain, investing in my own personal growth has been the best decisions that I've made. And I remember, especially in the very beginning when I didn't really know what to expect and I felt really stuck, it felt so scary. I remember hiring my very first coach and I was equally excited, but I was also super afraid. I was stepping into an unknown, and I knew deep down that things were going to change in my life. And sometimes we're afraid of that change, oftentimes we are, but I knew it's what I needed.

And now thank the sweet heavens above that I did. I cannot imagine my life not having these tools. I can't imagine how I would navigate my days. I can't imagine I would handle so much that's going on around me if it weren't for the tools that we teach within the School of Self-Image.

And ultimately, our goal within that membership is for you to see yourself in the most extraordinary ways because you're always creating to the edge of your self-image. You can't outperform it. Whatever you think about yourself is ultimately going to be how you show up in the world and what you create. And so doing this work is one of the best decisions you will ever make.

So if you're serious about making decisions, if you're serious about elevating your life, if you're serious about getting results, I'm very serious about helping you and supporting you. All you need to do is go to schoolofselfimage.com/join and get inside that membership. That's one decision I know, one year from now, you'll be so glad that you made. Now, go flip on that decision switch in your life, my friends. Let it illuminate your next steps in your life. Thank you all so much for tuning in, and I will see you next week. Cheers.

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You’re Invited To Live An Extraordinary Life!

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I've got a confession to make: my mind used to be like a cluttered closet filled with thoughts that no longer fit me.

You know those old sweatpants you can't bear to throw away? Yeah, I had the mental equivalent of those taking up precious space in my head.

One day, while getting dressed, I realized something profound: I was choosing my clothes more carefully than my thoughts.

Light bulb moment!

I decided it was time to give my mind a makeover, just like I would my wardrobe.

Every morning, as I select my outfit, I now “dress my mind” with thoughts that make me feel confident, capable, and ready to conquer the world.

Negative thoughts trying to sneak in? Trust me, they try. But I swap them out faster than last season's fashion trends.

The result? A mental closet filled with thoughts that inspire me, empower me, and make me feel like a total rockstar.

And let me tell you, Test, it's been a game-changer.

So, take a peek inside your mental closet. Are your thoughts serving you, or are they like those old, worn-out clothes that need to be donated?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some mental shopping to do. I hear confidence is the new black!

The Energy of WordsThink about how it feels when you speak unkindly to yourself. Those harsh words act like toxins, polluting your mindset and lowering energy vibrations.

Conversely, uplifting words are like energetic nutrition that raises your frequency, attracting positive experiences and opportunities.

The words you choose to think or verbalize have the power to impact your life.

Negative talk = negative energy = negative outcomes.

But infuse your mind with encouragement and inspiration? You’re naturally drawn towards abundance.

Observe how your words impact your days. If your self-talk needs a positive boost, give yourself that gift and watch how your energy shifts.

Create Your Dream Days: The Royal Treatment WorkshopDo you dream about a day filled with things that make you feel fabulous? Nourishing meals that fuel your body. Movement that makes you feel energized. Activities that bring you pure joy.

But let's be real: Most days feel like a blur, and taking time for ourselves often gets pushed aside. Feeling stuck between the reality of a rushed morning and the dream of a fulfilling day is all too common.

The Royal Treatment workshop helps you bridge that gap!

Prioritizing our physical, mental, and emotional well-being doesn't have to feel complicated or out of reach. It’s about unlocking simple, powerful ways to feel incredible.

This virtual workshop will transform your days from hurried and mundane to luxuriously energized.

You'll discover:

Self-care rituals that nourish your body and boost your energy
Movement practices that make YOU feel good, not drained
Everyday pleasure boosters to keep your days vibrant

By the end of our 5 days together, you'll have a personalized self-care roadmap for crafting dream days that leave you feeling energized and empowered.

Join The Royal Treatment workshop for $37 and invest in a lifetime of well-being.

We start next Monday, April 8, but it’s not too late to join. Don't miss this opportunity to transform your days and energize your life.

Here are the details:
The Royal Treatment WorkshopApril 8 to April 12(Replays will be available)

Join The Royal Treatment Workshop for $37Shop My Thought ClosetWe all have days (and possibly weeks or months) when we’re stuck in a mental rut, replaying negativity on repeat. Do you wish you could swap those old, worn-out thoughts for something more empowering? Then get ready to Shop My Thought Closet!

On this week’s podcast, I’ll reveal the secret to ditching the unflattering outfits in your Thought Closet and share the powerful mindset shifts I use when I need to revamp my mental wardrobe.

It’s time to stop letting your inner critic dictate your style and learn how to curate a beautiful Thought Closet that lets you show up as your best self.

Listen to The Podcast// TheEDIT

A weekly digital magazine by the School of Self-Image

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Listen to the Full Episode:From Stuck to Unstoppable: Strategies for Personal Breakthroughs

To overcome feeling stuck, it is crucial to provide your brain with clarity and direction. In this podcast episode, Tonya Leigh emphasizes the importance of giving clear instructions and goals to your brain. She shares that when she felt stuck while recording the episode, it was because she lacked the direction and clarity needed to move forward.

Tonya also stresses the significance of setting extraordinary goals to combat feeling stuck. Many individuals struggle with this because they have not determined what they truly want. By establishing clear and specific goals, individuals can give their brains a sense of purpose and direction, enabling them to progress and break free from feeling stuck.

Tonya highlights how perfectionism can hinder progress and steal time. By letting go of the need to be perfect and focusing on taking action, individuals can overcome the fear of imperfection, make decisions, and move forward in their personal and professional lives.

Join Tonya as she delves into why we get stuck and how to move forward with purpose and intention.

Talking Points:01:24 - Clarity and Direction for Getting Unstuck

02:18 - Choosing an Extraordinary Goal

03:42 - Discomfort of Change

07:21 - Acceptance and Authenticity

08:03 - The Trap of Perfectionism

09:07 - Embracing Where You Are

10:00 - The Analogy of Water Skiing

11:46 - Letting Go of the Rope

13:22 - Creating Desired Feelings

14:48 - Moving Towards Desired Emotions

Connect with Self-Image, Coach Tonya Leigh: Website: https://schoolofselfimage.com * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tonyaleigh * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TonyaLeighOfficial * TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thetonyaleigh * YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TonyaLeighOfficial DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:*Do you ever feel like you're spinning your tires but going nowhere, or as if you are just stuck in one place and yet life is passing you by? If so, you're going to love today's episode, where we're going to talk about how to get unstuck, so let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach Tonya Leigh.

Hello, my friends, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to another episode of the podcast where we are going to talk about how to get unstuck. And the irony of this podcast is that I have been so stuck in trying to record it. In full transparency, I just recorded 15 minutes and I didn't like it, and so I deleted it and we are starting over. It couldn't be more perfect that this is happening, because I'm getting to work through it in real time and really think about why we as human beings get stuck and then what we can do to get unstuck. So if I look at just this episode of why I felt so stuck, a couple of things became very obvious to me, and I think it's something that you will be able to relate to. The first thing is that I did not give my brain clarity and direction around this episode.

Typically, when I sit down to record, I have bullets that I have laid out. I know exactly what I want to cover, and I did not do that for this episode. I thought I was going to get on here and I was going to wing it, and I was going to just let it come as it wanted to. And sometimes that works. I'm really good at going off script. I'm really good at ad-libbing, but my brain was like, "Wait, what are we talking about? What are the specific points that you want to cover?" And I did not provide my brain that direction or that clarity. Many of you may be feeling stuck in your life because you haven't figured out what you want. You don't know what you're trying to create. And the reason why the majority of you don't know is because you're afraid of the answer.

It's more comfortable and familiar to stay where you are than to admit what you really want and then go get it. This is exactly why within the School of Self-Image, as soon as you become a member, one of the first things that I ask you to do is to choose an extraordinary goal. Now, I watch what happens when I challenge women to do this. They want to be confused. They want to tell me they don't know what they want. They try to convince me that their desires aren't possible, and all that does is keep them stuck, and I coach them through it. And the moment they choose their extraordinary goal, now they know what they need to think, how they need to show up, the things that they need to do. But it's scary. Sometimes it's scary to admit what we truly want because deep down, we know we can't keep being the same person and expect to get it.

And that change is difficult. But if you want to get unstuck in your life, you must be willing to feel the discomfort of change. There is no other option. And when you realize that that discomfort is just being created by your own mind, and if you can learn to manage that, then you can handle the discomfort that comes with change. The other thing that I realized around this episode is that my perfectionism was sneaking in. If I were to go back and listen to the 15 minutes that I recorded, it wasn't bad. In fact, it was probably good, even without giving my brain direction, because I've talked about this topic feels like thousands of times. But my brain was telling me, "This isn't good enough. You don't know what you're talking about. Look at you. You're stuck right now. How dare you do a podcast on how to get unstuck?"

See how the brain can do crazy things? And so I deleted it, and that cost me time. And yet it was perfect because, again, I'm getting to work through this in real time with you. But perfectionism will not only steal your time, it will steal your life. How many times have you avoided putting your work in the world, putting yourself out there, saying something, because you were afraid of being imperfect? You were afraid of getting it wrong. How many times have you avoided making a decision because you're afraid it's not the perfect one? And so you sit around and you wait and wait, and you find out years have passed and you still haven't made that decision. If you want to get unstuck, just start making decisions and take the label of right or wrong out of it. What if there were only decisions? No right decision, no wrong decision, just a decision that you can make a new decision from.

I always tell members in the membership, I'm like, "Listen, the most important decision is not the first one in deciding what to do or not to do. It's the second one. It's the decision after the decision, deciding how you want to feel about your decision so that you can keep that momentum going." But a lot of us are afraid of making decisions in the first place, because we're so afraid of getting it wrong, and then we tell ourselves that we're stuck. No, the reality is you're not stuck. You're just not making decisions, because you're afraid. Be honest with yourself.

I'm not making a decision, because I'm afraid. Then we have to figure out, what are you afraid of? Are you afraid of failing? Are you afraid of succeeding? Are you afraid of the discomfort that you may feel? Are you afraid of what people will think? Because we need to get down to the root cause because once we identify that fear, we know what we're working with. So my fear around this episode, if I were to dig deep, which I'm doing right now in real time, is that it wasn't going to be good enough. Okay? So what? You won't like it. Okay, so what? Well, if you don't like it, then I may lose you as a listener. Okay? So what?

And then I'll be all alone over here talking by myself. See how the brain works? Versus to get unstuck, you tell the story of what you want. You speak your truth, and you accept that some people will like it and others won't, and that's okay. Right now, some of you may not be relating to this at all. You're like, "What are you talking about? I don't like this at all." But some of you will. Now, if you don't like it, you may choose to leave. You may say, "You know what? This girl's not a good fit for me." And that's okay. But trying to be liked and accepted by everyone will keep you stuck. And that's the fear for a lot of you. It's the reason why you're not going out there and sharing yourself with the world, your true self. You're trying to be so perfect.

But if I've learned anything, the world doesn't want the perfect version of you. They want the real you. The you that maybe says the word wrong sometimes, the you that fails, the you that succeeds, the you that wakes up with morning breath, and the you that looks amazing once you put your makeup on. We want all of you. And when you begin to embrace that, you don't have this fear of not being perfect and you're willing to be seen. But you have to be willing for people not to like you. I have been coaching women for over 15 years now, and I see how this desire to be perfect so that we can be accepted keeps so many of us stuck. And then you sit around and talk about how stuck you are. No, again, you're just afraid. Own that fear. Figure out what it is and address that, if you want to get unstuck.

The other reason why you may be feeling stuck is that you're fighting with where you are. Have you ever heard the phrase, what you resist, persist? That's what happens when you are stuck and you're trying so hard to not be stuck. It really is like just spinning your tires in the mud. And the more you try to get from where you are, the deeper those ruts become. And it feels impossible to get out from it. Because I know in the past, when I have felt stuck and I started talking about how stuck I felt, and I tried to change it, but the answers weren't coming, and I tried even harder, then I would start to feel anxious because I was feeling so stuck. And then I started to feel anxious about feeling anxious because I was so stuck. And it's just like layer upon layer.

And the analogy I love to use is with water-skiing. I don't know if you've ever been water-skiing, but when I used to ski and now I sometimes wakeboard, if you ever fall, it's crazy, the tendency to hang onto the rope, even though the boat is pulling you. And it's impossible, from a physics point of view, for you to get up because your hands out in front of you, your wakeboard or your skis are behind you. You cannot. And yet, this is what we do when we're stuck. We're trying to hang on to get unstuck. The way to get unstuck is to let go of the rope. Let go for a minute and just relax. Just be for a moment. What if this is just a natural part of life? I like to say when I'm feeling stuck, I'm like, no, this is just a slower period for you.

In nature, things slow down sometimes before they speed up. And even reframing it from I am stuck to I'm just in a slow period right now, just feels so much more liberating. And what you'll notice when you let go of the rope is that you are supported. You have a life jacket on. And then what you'll notice if you allow yourself to go to the next level is that you're floating in this beautiful lake with the sun around you. It's peaceful and the boat is coming back around with the rope to pick you up. But if you hang onto the rope, you will never get unstuck. And so earlier, when I felt so stuck with this episode, I let go of the rope. I got up, I went for a walk, I went upstairs, I turned on some music, I had a cup of tea. I took my brain off of the podcast, and then I came back with a new energy, a new excitement to record this.

But as long as I was sitting here saying, "God, I'm so stuck. I don't know what to say. I don't know what to do. It's not going to be good enough," I was just hanging onto the rope. So what if you just embraced where you are as a season in your life? What if you stopped telling it as the story of I am stuck, and instead, traded that story out for something that feels like letting go of the rope? I am supported right now. The answers will come. I don't need to rush it. Huh, wonder what I can be grateful for today? Maybe I need to go outside. What do I need right now in this moment? Because if you think about it, why do you want to get unstuck? Let's just take this episode for example. I wanted to get unstuck so that I could get it done, because I have quite a few other things to do today.

Okay? And? What am I really after? And the reason why we want anything is because we're after a feeling. What I wanted to feel was a sense of relief. And guess what? I didn't have to wait to record a podcast to feel that. Feelings are created by the thoughts in our head. And me sitting here talking about how stuck I'm feeling and how it's not going to be good enough, and I don't know what to say, that is taking me further and further away from what I really want, which is the feeling of relief. And so I began to ask myself, "How can I create that feeling now?" And I started to look around and look at how I'm supported. I started to look outside because the trees are starting to bud here in Charlotte, and it's so beautiful outside. And I just started to appreciate what's around me.

And then I was able to access thoughts like whatever you do is enough, Tonya, and you are going to say exactly what you're meant to say, and it's okay if some people don't like it. Hopefully, it will speak to some. But at the end of the day, your job, your role is to put your work in the world. I reminded myself that done is better than perfect. And the more dones you have, the more momentum you get. And all of a sudden, I started to feel so much relief, even before I recorded the podcast. And then I came here for you all, feeling great. Do you see how that works? So if you're feeling stuck, what feeling do you think you're going to have on the other side of being stuck? What is the feeling that you're after? And guess what? The secret to getting unstuck is to begin to feel that feeling or at least move closer to it from where you are.

And guess what? You don't have to do a thing in order to get there. That's what we often do, we're, "I've got to do something to get to that feeling, then I can feel unstuck." No. From right where you are, how can you begin to feel that emotion that you're after? And if you're going to do anything, do it in service of that emotion. Don't do it to try to get unstuck. Do it to feel joy, to feel confident, to feel relief. And from that place, from that place of feeling better, just watch out, because your next steps will be revealed to you. You'll be inspired. You will take steps from a better feeling place. And before you know it, you'll look around and realize you're not stuck. Have a beautiful week, my friends, and also, I almost forgot to mention, but the doors to the School of Self-Image are open right now, but we are closing soon.

So if you want to get unstuck, if you want to get clear, if you want to know what your next steps are, if you want support and tools and an amazing community, you're going to love this membership. You can head over to schoolofselfimage.com/join and I will see you inside. Take care. Cheers.

Hey, are you ready to transform your self-image but lack direction and support? If so, I'd like to invite you to join the School of Self-Image. This is an exclusive monthly membership where you'll create your own powerful before and after story. Through weekly classes and coaching, you'll learn powerful techniques on how to elevate the quality of your mindset, style, and surroundings, to change how you see yourself and create extraordinary results in your life. Head over to schoolofselfimage.com/join to learn more.

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Listen to the Full Episode:How Your Environment Shapes Your Self-Image

Let's delve into the psychology of space and how our environments can shape our self-image. Tonya shares personal experiences of how different homes she has lived in reflect her inner world and how she uses her spaces to evolve her own self-image. She discusses the importance of using our spaces intentionally to change how we feel and see ourselves. By making small changes in our homes, we can align our spaces with who we want to become. She also emphasizes the power of using our spaces as tools for personal growth and transformation. Overall, the episode highlights the significance of our environments in influencing our self-image and provides practical tips for using our spaces to support our personal development journey.

Talking Points: * 00:00:00 - Introduction to the Psychology of Space * 00:05:30 - Reflecting on the Story of Different Homes * 00:10:38 - Personal Style and Home Decor Preferences * 00:15:04 - Using Spaces to Change Self-Image * 00:18:39 - Bridging the Gap Between Current Space and Desired Self-Image * 00:22:17 - Blooming in Your Current Space Useful Resources:* Join the membership now: https://schoolofselfimage.com/join * FREE download: https://schoolofselfimage.com/self-image-manifesto/ * Sign up for the weekly Edit: http://schoolofselfimage.com/edit

Welcome to the School of Self-image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello, beautiful friends. I am so excited about today's episode because we are talking about the psychology of space. I'm not talking about outer space. I'm talking about the spaces you inhabit. I'm talking about your environment. When I started the school of self-image and I was really thinking through my own self-image journey and the clients that I'd worked with for over a decade, it became super clear to me that you cannot talk about self-image without talking about our environment because our environments are shaping us, and we shape our environments. And that's exactly why surroundings is a core pillar of the work that we do within the school of self-image. And if you're a member, you know that this is what we're focused on this month. I'm taking members through deep exercises, looking at their space as this home portrait, giving them access to uncover things within them that maybe they had buried, they didn't realize, and also using our spaces to help elevate our self-image.

Because think of it this way, if someone were to go into your house right now, what is the story that they would tell about you? What do you think they would say? Would they say, "She's very creative," or "She is a minimalist"? Maybe they'd say, "She's got a busy life." Maybe they'd say, "She likes to hoard things." Maybe they'd say, "She is in transition." That's what they would say. They came into my house right now. They would be like, "This is a woman in transition," because I've got boxes. I'm packing up because we're going to be moving into our home. Well, I thought it was going to be sooner rather than later, but turns out it's going to be later. We've got like three more months. But it would tell a story. And I was thinking about my own journey as it relates to my spaces, and I realized that no matter where I've been, I've always tried to make it feel a little bit like home, but I've never really settled.

And the way that has shown up is that I don't have a lot of pictures on my walls. I don't have a lot of things. In fact, furniture, I have very minimal furniture because I've never owned a home. I've always lived with someone, or I've rented. Now, what I have had plenty of are clothes. And for me, style has been my creative outlet. It has been the way that I express myself. And it's a core pillar of the school of self-image because we can use style to elevate our self image. But where do clothes live? In the closet, right? So when I look at that space in my home, it has always revealed so much about who I've been and who I'm becoming. And one of the things that I always do, you all, whenever I feel that I'm on the precipice of a big breakthrough is I purge my closet. I will literally go in my closet and say, does this piece represent the old me or the new me, who I'm becoming?

And I will get rid of so many things that I feel like are old Tonya, and I will begin to bring in new things that feel like who I'm becoming. But when I look at the homes that I've lived in, each of them have told a very, very fascinating story. In fact, if we go back to my very first home that I lived in with Sarah's dad, we had just gotten married. I was 18 years old. It was a tiny, tiny little brick house that he had that I moved into. And I was so grateful for it. It was my very first home, but it told the story of a girl who was becoming. But when I went through and I actually did the work that we're doing within the School of Self-image this month, I did it on this particular house.

And if I had to describe that house, it was very small, little brick house, very simple, and it didn't have a lot of light in it. I too remember that. It felt dark to me. It had dark walls. I did put some wallpaper up in the kitchen. And it was messy. I was messy. And guess what? Looking back on that house, it was such a reflection of how I felt at the time, very small. I had a lot of dark shadows that I hadn't addressed, and my mind was so cluttered and messy. It's really interesting to look back at that very first house and see how it reflected back to me, my inner world. And then I moved into a house with my second husband. And I remember that house was so beautiful. It almost reminded me of a Frank Lloyd Wright home, but it was very old modern with lots of windows, lots of light.

And I remember that was a moment where I was like, I want to get my life together, I want to be organized, and I want to enjoy life more. And that house really did reflect the bigness that I started to feel in life, how expansive my life was starting to feel. It was reflecting back my inner world and who I was becoming. And I've done this with every single home, so it's been so fascinating for me to witness my inner world through the spaces that I have lived. Our homes are more than just physical spaces. They are literally mirrors that reflect our inner world. The way we decorate, organize, and even maintain our living spaces can reveal so much about our personalities, our interests, and our emotional states. For instance, a person who values order and cleanliness may have a meticulously organized home, while someone who is more carefree and creative and spontaneous may have a more eclectic and very lived in space.

It's been really fascinating to go through the process of building a home because I'm having to answer questions about what colors I love and what designs I like and what fabrics really speak to me. And I'm really being intentional about this, and I'm paying attention to what I really love versus what I think I should love. Are you with me? Because we go on the Gram and we see everybody's beautiful homes and we start thinking, oh, well, that looks good. But it's almost like seeing an outfit on a mannequin and you think, oh, that looks great. And then you try it on and you're like, but this doesn't feel like me. And so I've really been thinking about not only how I want to feel in this house, but how I want this house to be an expression of me. And one of the things that's become very clear is that I love bright and neutral palettes.

So I love either whites and browns and topes and creams, or I love dark. I love the contrast between black and white. I don't like a lot of color as it relates into walls. But do you know what I do love? I love the flexibility of being able to change out colors, change out pillows, change out artwork. And I realize what that says about my personality is that I don't like being trapped to any one aesthetic. Now, I know that you can paint walls, but I love the flexibility of being able to be creative with the details. And this even shows up in my personal style. I love neutrals, but then I'll play around with splashes of colors with my purse and my belts and scarves. I love the versatility that neutrals allow for me. And so what does that say about my inner world?

I've been asking myself this question a lot because I find it so fascinating, and I've come up with a few theories. One, when I think about self-image, how I see myself, what that reflects back to me is that I see myself as that calming, grounding energy that is represented by neutral colors. It's that balance. But I also have this other part of my personality, which is super fun, super creative, super sometimes eclectic. It's the part of me that loves to dance until 2:00 AM. It's the part of me who literally, last weekend, laughed until my belly hurt. It's like that wilder part of me. And so I think when I look at my aesthetic preferences of that neutral palette, which is the bigger part of me, but then these bold, fun splashes of color and interesting decor, that represents that other part of me, that free spirited part of me. I don't think we have to choose. I think we can be both. And so that's one thing.

The other thing I was thinking about is how this neutral palette that I love and these colors that the interesting patterns and textures show up in my business. And I think about the school of self-image membership. And when you come in, the first thing that you get access to is the self-image method. That is my neutral. That is the grounding force of the whole entire membership. It is the foundation. But then I get to bring in all of these interesting classes that really support the self-image method, and that's where I get to play and produce and offer value in many different ways. And the last theory I came up with is that I love flexibility. I don't like being tied to one thing. I feel like if I were to paint my walls red, I would be a prisoner to red.

And so by having the neutral color, I can throw some red in the room if I want to, but I can also switch it out. The last thing that just came to mind is I feel like this also represents my emotional control. Because when I think back to another house I lived in, I painted everything red. It was really on trend at the time. I had a red kitchen. I think the dining room was red. I painted everything red. And that was the time of my life where I had no emotional control because oftentimes our colors that we choose are such an expression of our personalities and how we operate in the world. And red is very fiery, very passionate. And let me tell you, that was me, and not in a good way. There's the really good, fiery, passionate, and then there's just the out of control not knowing how to manage yourself.

But now, today, I feel like I have this balance of being able to emotionally manage myself while also expressing my emotions in a very intentional way. Now, am I perfect at it? No. I still lose my cool sometimes. But it's also that balance of being able to stay calm, and also not suppressing my emotions, but expressing them in a way that is intentional and purposeful. So it's really interesting to think about what your spaces say about you. Now, if you were to look in my current space, you would see a woman who is in transition. You would also see a woman who has a lot going on. Just in full transparency, my home right now is not ideal. It's not as organized as I would like for it to be. My closet is a little bit messy right now, which is not how it usually is, and I'm okay with that.

I think when we go on the gram and we're looking at everybody's picture perfect home, we can start to think, oh my God, we're really failing at life, but everybody's just showing you the highlight reel, right? Now, ideally, one day my home would look like that, but I'm never going to beat myself up for my home not being perfect. Because you know what our homes are lived in? We have humans in our homes who do things in different ways and who have their own value systems. And so it's learning how to cohabitate with other people as well. But right now, my home, if you were to walk in it, you'd be like, "Oh, Tonya Leigh's got a lot going on." And I think about my inner world. There's a lot going on right now. I'm juggling a lot of different plates. There's a lot of projects, and then moving and people coming to visit.

There's just a lot happening, and my home definitely reflects it right now. And so I love using this tool, never as a way to beat yourself up, but as a way to just be aware of what your home may be telling you, because here's the really cool part. The psychology of space says that our homes, our spaces that we find ourselves in can impact how we feel, and then how we feel can impact our homes. Everything you choose to bring into your home is representative of you. But the cool part is we can begin to use our spaces to change not only how we feel, but how we see ourselves. For example, if you want to see yourself as a woman who is fit and healthy, imagine what her kitchen looks like. Imagine what her pantry looks like. And you can begin to let things go that don't fit in with that vision and bring things in that do.

I've told this story so many times, so excuse me if you've heard it, but I literally changed my life by changing my bookshelf. I used to look at my bookshelf and it just told the story of a woman who was broken and who was trying to fix herself. And one day when I realized it, I was like, oh, wait. Because I thought about some of the homes that I had visited in France, and their books told a very different story. Their books told stories of women and men who were well traveled and who loved art and design and who loved reading, excuse me, classics. And I was thinking, oh my God, I want to see myself like that. And so I came home, took all of those books off, except for a few of my favorites, and I started to put books on my shelf that when I looked at them, they told a very different story.

And I'm telling you, what you see is informing how you think. And so we can begin to use our spaces to change our psychology. If you want to see yourself as an organized woman, just pick one area of your home that you're going to commit to keeping organized and do it for the sole purpose of seeing yourself that way. Not, oh, I'm going to clean this place up and it's going to be organized. No, I'm going to clean this up and I'm going to organize it, and I'm going to keep it that way to send the message to my brain of this is who I am, this is who I'm becoming, I am an organized woman, because you can't see yourself as organized if your space is a mess. And different areas of our home can represent different things. For those of us who work from home or we have our own business that we run from home, just look at your desk. And what does it say about you as it relates to your business?

And if you don't like what it's saying when you look at it, use that space to change your psyche, to change your self image. Maybe you want to clean it. Maybe you want to put some beautiful flowers on your desk. Maybe you want to organize the papers on your desk. But whatever you need to do to send that message to your brain of this is what's up. This is who we are. This is who we're becoming. Now, when I'm teaching on this topic, one of the questions that I often get is, Tonya, how do you bridge the gap between your current space when it feels like it's so far off from how you see yourself? And I've been there. I have lived in all sorts of places and spaces, and none of them have ever felt completely like me. But here's what I want to offer you.

Number one, stop comparing your current space with other people's spaces. Now, you can use it for inspiration, but if you're using it as a way to beat yourself up and tell yourself that you're not where you want to be in life and that you should be somewhere other than where you are, it's just not useful. And that's one thing I'm really proud of myself for. I've never gone on Instagram and seen beautiful spaces and thought, ugh, my life sucks. I've been inspired. I've been like, "That's cool. One day, maybe." But I've never done that, and it's just freed up my energy to look at the second point I want to make. How can you make where you are be closer to how you want to see yourself and how you want to feel in your life?

Bring it back to present day, your current home where you're living, even if you're living at home with mom and dad, even if you're living with roommates. Ask yourself, how can I bloom here? How can I make this space feel more aligned with the woman I am and how I want to feel in my everyday life? Then you can begin to look at the practical steps of this process. And I always encourage women to start small. Maybe you pick one corner of a room, or you pick an entire room. Maybe there's a room that you've been avoiding. It may be an area of your life that you've been avoiding that that room represents, and that's why it's powerful. Because you address the room, you're also addressing what that room represents. But look at that room and just imagine how you want it to look and feel, or that corner of the room. And you can either, A, paint it. You can maybe purge. Maybe there's things that you want to get rid of that's old energy that's weighing you down.

You may want to start bringing some things in, new decor, a piece of art that really represents how you want to see yourself and how you want to feel in your life. Maybe you want to paint a room, or maybe you just want to start with some simple things like candles and flowers. And maybe this is where my love of flowers came from, because when you're renting a place, you don't want to, or at least I didn't want to invest a lot of money into painting walls and putting up expensive draperies. I just wanted to make it beautiful for that moment in my life. And so I fell in love with flowers. For you, it may be something else. But no matter where you are, it is an opportunity to begin to use your space to uplevel how you see yourself, to change how you feel in that space, and to use that space as a tool to completely change your self image.

And what I've noticed is that doing this inner and outer work simultaneously, you begin to expand. And then what you are capable of expands, what you have room to hold, expands. And you'll probably look around one day and realize you're in a completely new space because you really bloomed in the spaces that you had. Because let's face it, you all, fighting with where you are doesn't get you anywhere. It keeps you stuck. So decide right now, no matter what your home looks like, no matter where it is, that you are going to bloom there. You're going to make the best of it. You're going to use this space to support your growth. And if you love this topic, you're going to love what we're doing within the School of Self-image membership this month. And it just so happens the doors are open and we are doing a deep dive in a class called Your Home Portrait.

I did this work years ago, and it literally changed my life. And I have worked with private clients around this, but I've never taught this class for the membership. So I'm so excited for you all who are in the membership to dive deep into the exercises and the challenge for this month. And if you want to join us, come on. Head over to school of self image.com/joint. Have a beautiful week, my friends, and I will see you in next week's episode. Cheers.

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You’re Invited To Live An Extraordinary Life!

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It seems like yesterday that I was pulling all-nighters fueled by worry and coffee, researching every possible illness under the sun while my daughter was sick.

Guilt gnawed at me, whispering, “You’re selfish,” whenever I considered taking even a moment for myself. "There’s no time!" my mind screamed, convinced the world would crumble if I weren't tending to every need, every demand.

And crumble it did, but not the world – me. My energy plummeted, bags formed under my eyes, and I started getting sick. My spirit had dimmed, and my business stagnated. I wasn't thriving; I was surviving.

Something had to change. Prioritizing self-care wasn't a luxury but a lifeline. So, I did the unthinkable – I put myself first. I scheduled “Tonya time” like it was a crucial client meeting, refusing to wait for scraps of leftover energy at the end of the day.

Guess what? The world didn't implode. Quite the opposite, in fact. My daughter started healing, and my business – fueled by a rejuvenated me – bloomed.

This journey isn’t always easy. The whispers of “shouldn't you be…” still surface sometimes.

But now, I know the truth:

And that's why I'm inviting you to join my Royal Treatment workshop on April 8 through April 12.

This is not about bubble baths and spa days (though there's a place for those, too!); it's about reclaiming your power, prioritizing your well-being, and discovering the queen within who's ready to rule her own kingdom.

Let's ditch the guilt, embrace self-care, and watch our lives, relationships, and businesses flourish together.

Are you ready? Join The Royal Treatment and transform your life with exquisite self-care.

The Butterfly Effect of Self-CareThe Butterfly Effect of Self-Care

In the realm of self-care, small actions like carving out quiet reading time, enjoying a mindful walk, or indulging in a healthy snack send ripples of positivity outward – just like the flutter of a butterfly's wings. Each mindful moment, from journaling your thoughts to practicing deep breathing, contributes to a cascade of well-being beyond your life.

Imagine the increased patience you share with loved ones after a relaxing bath or the spark of creativity you bring to work after a morning run. Picture your child mirroring your calm demeanor after you practice mindful breathing exercises. Or think of how your newfound energy from eating balanced meals translates into more playful interactions with your partner.

Self-care isn't selfish; it's a powerful act that enriches you and the world around you.

Start by identifying one small self-care action you can commit to daily. Write it down, track your progress, and witness the ripples of positivity spread outwards.

Embrace Self-Care Without Deprivation or BoredomHave you been tirelessly trying to prioritize self-care amidst your demanding routine?

Are you sick and tired of feeling deprived, anxious, or guilty while attempting to make healthier choices?

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The Royal Treatment WorkshopApril 8 to April 12(Replays will be available)

Join The Royal Treatment Workshop for $37Why Every Woman Needs a Royal TreatmentStop me if this sounds familiar…

You wake up feeling drained, to-do list a mile long, and already dreading the day ahead. You juggle work, family, and commitments, leaving little to no time for yourself. The idea of prioritizing self-care feels like a distant dream.

But what if there was a way to find joy and fulfillment amidst the busyness? In this week's podcast, I'm diving deep into the surprising facts behind self-care and why it's more than just bubble baths and face masks. We'll explore how changing the way you see yourself - and treat yourself - impacts everything else around you.

Listen to The Podcast// TheEDIT

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Listen to the Full Episode:From Negative to Neiman: Upgrading Your Thought Wardrobe

To enhance your life and mindset, it is essential to intentionally select and upgrade your thoughts to higher quality ones. In a podcast episode, Tonya Leigh stresses the significance of being mindful of the thoughts we entertain daily. She classifies thoughts into different levels, ranging from "Goodwill thoughts" inherited from past experiences to "Neiman Marcus thoughts" that are of superior quality and more empowering.

Tonya urges the audience to evaluate their current thought patterns and beliefs, highlighting that negative or outdated thoughts can hinder individuals and impact their overall well-being. By deliberately choosing thoughts that align with their values, dreams, and desires, individuals can cultivate a more positive and empowering mindset.

Join Tonya as she takes you through her thought closet and inspires listeners to consciously select empowering beliefs and shed outdated or limiting ones to cultivate a more positive, resilient, and fulfilling mindset.

Talking Points:03:02 Personal style transformation

05:04 Choosing thoughts intentionally

10:35 Upgrading your thoughts

16:15 Couture thoughts

20:45 Thoughts about myself

22:11 Embracing Your Uniqueness

29:44 Thoughts about money

32:56 Money mindset transformation

38:51 Life as a game

42:59 Feeling bad cannot stop magic

45:09 Thoughts on love and relationships

48:46 The Royal Treatment Workshop

Useful Resources:* The Royal Treatment Workshop: https://schoolofselfimage.com/royal * FREE Download: https://schoolofselfimage.com/self-image-manifesto/ * Sign up for the weekly Edit: http://schoolofselfimage.com/edit

Connect with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: Website: https://schoolofselfimage.com * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tonyaleigh * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TonyaLeighOfficial * TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thetonyaleigh * YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TonyaLeighOfficial DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:*I was talking to a girlfriend yesterday, and she said something that made me chuckle and equally made me feel so sad. She told me, she's like, "Girl, I am feeling like yesterday's fries." What she meant is that she's just tired, and feeling worn out, and she's feeling like she is serving herself the scraps of life instead of enjoying the whole buffet. I know she's not alone. I've been there. Maybe you feel like you are yesterday's fries as well.

This is exactly why I am so excited about our upcoming workshop called The Royal Treatment. I created this workshop three years ago because I saw a huge need. After coaching women for 15 years, I see what it's costing us when we constantly put our own self-care on the back burner. I see how it affects our families, our relationships, our work, our businesses, our quality of life, and our health. Yet, it can feel so complicated, right? We've got one person telling us that we need to eat more meat. We've got another person telling us we need to be vegan. Then we have so many obligations on our calendar, that it seems impossible to create the time to exercise and to do the work in really taking care of ourselves.

But what if it could be easier? What if you could create a custom plan made just for you, to help you get your energy back, your zest for life back, your excitement back? That's what The Royal Treatment is all about. Year after year, I've had women tell me that this workshop was the reset that they needed. Over our five days together, you are going to learn how to think, speak, eat, move, and most importantly, delight like a queen. We start April 8th. These are classes that will be recorded, so even if you can't attend them live, you will get all of the recordings, the beautiful workbook. You'll be able to take part in the most extraordinary community.

This year, we're doing something really fun. As soon as you sign up, you're going to get access to some of our top classes within the membership that you can begin to study and learn, and really prep you for this experience. I cannot wait for The Royal Treatment and I hope to see you there. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/royal and get signed up.

Now without further ado, let's go and shop my thought closet. It's going to be a fun episode, my friends, so let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, Master Life Coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello, beautiful friends. I am so excited about today's episode because I'm inviting you to come and shop my thought closet. Yes, we're going on a shopping spree. If you've been following me for any length of time, you know that style is one of the core pillars of the School of Self-Image. I have used style to completely transform how I see myself.

Now oftentimes, when I talk about style, people can assume that I'm talking about expensive clothing, designer handbags, and stilettos, and lots of makeup, and coiffed hair. Listen, when I talk about style, I am talking about being intentional with who you want to be, how you want to see yourself, and how you want to show up in the world. That is going to look different for all of us. I love, within the School of Self-Image membership, seeing all of the different translations of this work. I see women finally owning their love of blue jeans and t-shirts, and that rock and roll vibe. I love seeing women own that they actually do love dresses, pearls, and heels. I love watching women own the fact that they want to express athleticism, and they're rocking their up-leveled yoga pants and athleisure wear. What's important is that you are intentional, that you are choosing on purpose.

Now I want to take the same idea and apply it to your thoughts. For those of you in the membership, you know I use a lot of closet analogies, it's where the self-image method was born, in my closet. I love thinking about thought stores, like where you shop for your thoughts and the thought wardrobe that you create for yourself. This is about you intentionally choosing thoughts that fit you, that look beautiful on you, that help you express your values, your dreams, and your desires that help you go to the places that you want to go. Because in reality, you all, we're just experiencing our thinking of our lives. We think it's our jobs, we think it's our partner's behavior, or how our kids are doing in school. We think it's our bodies. But the reality is what we are experiencing is our thoughts about all of those things.

In this moment, you probably can't change some of the things that you think are making you upset or making you feel negatively. You can't change your partner's behavior, that's on him or her. You can't change your job in this moment. I guess you could walk out and quit, but most of you won't do that. The quickest way to begin to elevate the quality of your life is to elevate the quality of your thoughts. I want to talk about choosing our thoughts intentionally. I want to use the analogy of shopping for thoughts. Then I'm going to invite you into my thought closet and see if there are any thoughts that maybe you want to borrow from me.

When it comes to thoughts, I like to think of them this way. You can have your goodwill thoughts. These are thoughts that you get from the goodwill. These are the thoughts you've inherited, like hand-me-downs. Some, you may find are fantastic. For example, I inherited the belief that I can do anything I set my mind to. My mom gave me that thought. It's a beautiful thought, I love it. I also inherited the belief that I'm a hard worker. I love this belief. I love the results that it's created in my life. I love how I embrace hard work, I love my work ethic. I love this goodwill thought. A thought that was passed down to me has served me really well.

Another thought that I realized, as I was preparing for this episode, that was passed down to me that I just thought was the way the world was, but Fonz often reminds me not everybody thinks this way. In fact, a lot of people don't. But I grew up believing that there are a lot of good people in the world. Whenever I'm with people, I tend to look for the good in them. I can see beyond maybe their anger, I can see beyond their hurt. I can see the good in people because I grew up with that thought. My parents were like that. They were always looking for the good in people. This is one of those thoughts that has served me well, but sometimes I've ignored some of the bad behaviors of people because I'm so devout in this belief that there's good in there. I still believe that, but when I've sacrificed myself in search of their good, that's where that goodwill thought can cause me problems. But all in all, I'm very grateful for that.

But listen, y'all, just like the Goodwill, there can also be some really outdated or ill-fitting pieces when you go to the Goodwill. Maybe you've inherited a belief about your abilities, a negative self-image that someone else has planted in your mind years ago. I consider these to be junk thoughts that just don't serve you and they hold you back.

An example that comes to mind is I grew up thinking that I wasn't that smart. Now, it's a crazy thought when you consider that I was in the Beta Club, I made all As. I even graduated top of my class in nursing school, and later on at Boston University. But because I had such a deep Southern accent ... It wasn't even Southern, it was country. I had a country accent. I remember people making fun of me when I would travel outside of my little 30-mile radius and I would speak. The way I translated that was, "I'm not that smart." Then it became, "I'm not good enough. I'm not sophisticated, or worldly, or well-traveled." I had all of these beliefs about myself that I basically picked up at the Goodwill.

There was a moment in my journey where I realized, "This is just a thought that has been passed down to me." Even though I had evidence against it, it was still so deeply ingrained in me. It was a thought that I decided to return and I upgraded for a better thought.

I want you to think about the thoughts that you think every day. The question I love to ask is if I could choose my thoughts on purpose, would I ever choose this one? Of all of the thoughts that I can go out and shop for, number one, do I want to be going to the Goodwill to shop for my thoughts? Maybe. You can find some good, good things at thrift stores, and vintage stores, and the Goodwill. But you have to search really hard to find them. Or, do I want to go shop elsewhere for my thoughts?

That leads me to the second type of thought and I call these target thoughts. These are the mainstream thoughts, the everyone wears this kind of idea. There's nothing inherently wrong with these kinds of thoughts until they don't serve you, or they're not the perfect fit for who you want to be and the life you want to live. They might be comfortable, but they're not exactly inspiring.

Within the membership, I teach the thought ladder. Halfway up the ladder, we hit what I consider to be neutral thoughts. These would be your target thoughts. These are thoughts that aren't particularly exciting, but they're not particularly demotivating either. For example, maybe it's, "I have a body." It's just a general thought. It doesn't harm you. It doesn't exactly excite you. Maybe if you are experiencing a challenging situation, a target thought could be, "I've done hard things before." It's not getting you up and ready to pick up the sword and run into battle, but it's also not keeping you stuck in the past. Again, target thoughts are just neutral thoughts. They're thoughts that are not exceptionally high quality, but they're not low quality either. You can go into Target and find some really good things that look great in your home, that look great on your body, but they're not high quality. They're just neutral.

But then we move into what I call Neiman Marcus thoughts and these are higher quality. If we think about this in terms of the thought ladder, these are moving you towards you embodying and believing the things that you want to believe about yourself, and about your life, and your abilities. Target thoughts would be taking a neutral thought and just getting a higher quality thought from that. Instead of, "I have a body," it might be, "I have a body that serves me well, that helps me to enjoy my life." Then we move up to, "I have a body that I love taking care of, my body is beautiful." You can see how those are higher-quality thoughts. In terms of your abilities, it goes from, "I've done hard things," to, "I can do hard things, and I'm excited to learn and grow from this opportunity. I'm excited to see what I'm made of. I can handle whatever comes my way, bring it. I was made for this."

Neiman Marcus thoughts are the thoughts where you're really starting to embody who you want to be, and who I think you truly are. This is where those powerful I am statements come in. I am beautiful. I am smart. I am capable. I am abundant. I am able to create whatever it is that my heart really, really desires. This is where your thinking thoughts as if you are living in your after story.

As I was preparing for this, I was thinking about why it is so hard for us just to go straight to Neiman's and start shopping. But think of it this way. If you're entire life, you've been shopping at the Goodwill, and now someone's told you, "Hey, wait. You can go to Neiman's, you know that, and there's a whole variety of things in there that will look amazing on you." A lot of people will have a lot of thoughts about that. They'll start telling themselves, "But, I don't deserve it. It's too expensive. Who am I to go and shop at Neiman Marcus? What are they going to think of me?"

It's the same way when we start changing our thoughts. People around you may think, "Who do you think you are, thinking you're all that?" Or you may have a belief it's too expensive. The expense of shopping at Neiman's is truly the intention and the effort that is required when you begin to change these deep neural pathways. You have to really be mindful of your own mind. You have to understand the thoughts that you're thinking that's causing you to feel the way you're feeling. A lot of people don't want to put in that work. It's too expensive so they stay in their comfort zone. They stay shopping at the stores that they've shopped their whole lives because it's what they know, it's what's familiar and that's what they think they deserve.

But I'm here to tell you Neiman's is open for business. If we really want to crank it up, we're going to go Natalier and get your thoughts custom-made. These are called couture thoughts. The way I like to think of these thoughts is that they're custom-made for you and your life. These are the thoughts that reflect what you value, what your dreams are, and what's important to you. Let's say, for example, your dream is to write a novel. A couture thought might be, "My imagination is boundless. I have so much creativity. I have the discipline to turn my ideas into a captivating story."

When I think about my couture thoughts, it's a lot around the work that I do. I'm constantly thinking, "Self-Image is the most important work you will ever do," and I really believe that. I have thoughts like, "This work matters. I'm building a company that cares for people. I'm creating a culture that people love to work in. I'm creating a company that helps women create after stories." Those are examples of my own couture thoughts that I've custom-created for my life, my work, and my dreams. When you think about you and what it is that you want to create, and the life that you want to live, and the values that you have, what are the couture thoughts that will support the uniqueness of you?

As promised, I want to bring you into my thought closet so that you can shop it. I love the idea of borrowing beliefs because sometimes, there are things out there that we can think and believe that we don't even know are possible because we've never heard it, we've never been around someone who thinks it. If nothing else, maybe this will expand your possibility, and if something resonates with you, take it. It's yours. We can always shop for another one. I thought about how to divide this up and I'm going to tell you some thoughts that I have around certain areas of life that I found that a lot of people struggle in.

The first thing that I want to point out is our morning thoughts. What are your first thoughts of the day? Just notice. Do they set you up to have an incredible day? I'm very intentional with my morning thoughts, which I why I love to do our daily five journal practice within the membership. It just helps me think on purpose. But the thing is, once you start doing this, you'll find that number one, life begins to reflect it back to you and it becomes easier and easier to think these thoughts. But when you're in a dark place when you feel like you're back is up against the wall, these thoughts may be hard to access. That's where you would go to a target thought and you would find a thought that just feels a little bit better.

But here are some of my typical morning thoughts. I cannot wait to find the magic in today. I love my life. I'm so grateful for it, and I will just go on an appreciation rampage. I am so grateful for my home. I'm so grateful for my family. I'll get very specific. I'm so grateful for my business and the women that I get to work with. Sometimes I'll think about one particular person that I just read their post in Facebook, and I'll think about them, and I'll just express gratitude. I also love it's going to be a good day. Think about that. I'm telling my brain what to create. If you tell your brain to create a good day, whatever's handed to you, your brain's going to be like, "Wait, we're supposed to be creating a good day. Let me take this and turn it around. Let me take this and find the good in it. Let me take this and offer solutions and possibilities." Be mindful of your morning thoughts.

Also, thoughts about myself. Now this is interesting because it may seem like I'm bragging, but I don't go around saying these things out loud. These are things that I think to myself and I want to offer them to you. One of the things that I think, and I've been especially focused on it this year since my word is royal for the year, I love thinking about myself, "I'm a queen. I am a queen." It totally shifts my energy, how I carry myself, how I treat myself, how I talk to myself, how I interact with other people, what I allow and what I don't tolerate. That's a very powerful thought that's in my thought closet.

Also, "I'm smart and capable." I love this one when I'm facing a challenge. I just remind myself, "Listen, I'm smart and I'm capable." That always leads to the next one which is, "I'll figure this out. I always do." I love thinking, "I am fun. No matter where I go, I am fun. I bring the fun. The fun is within me." Then also, "Not everyone is going to like me" That's actually a good thing because if someone doesn't like you, it means you're not being truly you. Listen, I've spoken openly on this podcast about how I have tried to be liked, and my fear of people not liking me, and people-pleasing. I've shifted out of that. It's the most freeing thing. Now is it completely 100% gone? No. But it certainly isn't showing up like it used to and it's the best feeling.

There are going to be people that don't like you but if you like you, and you're being true to yourself, that's what matters. That is one of my favorite thoughts in my thought closet these days. It's like, "Not everybody's going to like me and that's a good thing." It means that I'm being true to myself and that I'm going to attract the right people into my life.

The other one is thoughts about business and work. One of my favorite thoughts is my work is an expression of my unique gifts, strengths, and what I love. I often say you are what you love. It's so true. That's what makes you. It defines you. What do you love? It tells so much about a person. I think in this industry, and in the online world, we start looking at everybody else. There is nothing new, y'all. Nothing new. The concepts that I teach have been around for eons. But the way you teach it should be from you. You should intertwine what you love and what makes you unique.

When I think about my love of style, my love of beauty, my love of travel and luxury, I bring that into my work. It turns some people off. They tell me I'm superficial, that I'm vain, that all I care about are looks. Nothing could be further from the truth, but that's okay. I'm not going to deny that part of me to please a few. But it attracts the people who have similar values and who are attracted to the things that I love. Chances are, it's something that they love or they want to begin loving. They haven't given themselves permission to fully own that, "Yeah, I want to cultivate more of that in my life."

I just know that my work is an expression of my unique gifts and strengths, and what I love, and no one can do it like I do in the way that I do it. Just like no one can do it like you do in the way that you do it. When you really start to tap into what makes you you, and you really stay in that lane, you're going to attract the right people and you'll repel the ones who aren't a great fit. Nothing wrong with them, nothing wrong with you.

But I see it all the time, you'll look and you'll see someone who's really successful. You'll think, "I need to be more like them in order to be successful." You start sacrificing you, trying to be them, but what's making them so successful isn't necessarily how they're doing it. I think it's because they are being who they are. They're owning themselves. They know who they are, they really capitalize off of their unique strengths, and it attracts the right people for them. This is why formulas don't work, and why a lot of the things that they're teaching in the business world just don't work because people are trying to teach you to do it like them, versus helping you figure out how to do it like you. I just know every time I've gone deeper into myself and I've revealed more of myself in my business, my business just keeps getting better because it's an expression of my unique gifts, strengths, and my loves. The more I am open about that, the more I attract the right people.

I also believe deeply that my work matters. My work matters. I remember practicing this thought when I was working as a nurse. I was really burnt out and I just felt stuck. I remember just deciding one day I'm going to bloom where I'm planted. I'm going to really show up in this position, in this role, and I'm going to give it my all because it matters. It completely shifted everything. It shifted my energy. It shifted my attitude, and then things started happening. I had patients requesting me to be their nurse. I got a promotion. I got a raise. It's almost like the thought, my work matters, it started to show evidence for it because that's the way thoughts work. We're telling our brains what to go out there and create. I ended up having such a sense of fulfillment and joy, simply by changing my attitude and really focusing on my work matters.

For the School of Self-Image, I deeply believe that there is an extraordinary afterstory in all of us. Think about whatever it is that you do. What is the belief that you want to have around your particular niche, your particular job? What is the possibility that you want to see in the work that you do? I also love believing, and it's true, I love giving value. I love serving and I love providing value. I also love to think I'm creating a culture of acceptance, love, and growth. I love believing that I am an exceptional businesswoman and no one does business quite like I do. It's true. Just like with my work and my brand, I want to get rid of all of the shoulds of business. How you should be as a CEO, and what everybody else is doing, and really think about the culture that I want to create.

The way I'm thinking about growing my company is I'm thinking about, "What is the kind of company I would have loved to work for?" That's what I'm creating. We're doing some really fun things. At my event, I gave everyone who attended a clothing budget to go shop for the event. We have benefits now. It's like I'm creating this culture and doing business in a unique way, that really is a reflection of my own values. It's a business that I would want to work in because business is so dependent on the people in it. Not only are we serving clients, but I also see myself as the CEO as I'm serving my employees. I want them to look back at their time at SOSI and say, "Those were some of the best years of growth for me." Those two thoughts that, "I am an exceptional businesswoman and no one does business quite like I do," it's serving that mission.

Let's talk about money. Thoughts about money and the thoughts that I have in my thought closet, because I when I looked in my closet years ago, I realized that when it came to the money section, we can call it the pants section, I realized that all of those pieces I had gotten at the Goodwill, and they did not fit and they did not look good. This has been one of the hardest areas for me, in terms of elevating to Neiman and couture status because the beliefs were so ingrained around money, how it works, and the stigma attached to it. It's like anyone with money, I put on this pedestal, they are so amazing, but at the same time, they're so evil. The thoughts that we have towards money are really fascinating, and because we are experiencing our thinking, if you're struggling with money, just look at your thinking.

I was just having a conversation today with someone and I was like, "You know, money is fun," which is in my thought closet. Money doesn't solve the problems that people are trying to use money to solve the problem. A lot of people are trying to solve their security and their happiness with money, and it doesn't work. Do you know how many people I've had conversations with who have lots of money, who feel so insecure, are full of worry, who aren't happy? If money were the answer, those people would just be living their best lives, but they're not. Now money does solve other problems. It gives you options. It allows for experiences. It allows you to do certain things. It's a tool. But we have so many thoughts about money, so I have definitely upgraded my thoughts about money and now my experience of money is so different.

Some of my, you could say these are Neiman Marcus thoughts, the contemporary section. But I love taking care of my money. I used to believe that I wasn't good at doing that and I realized I was so good at proving that true, so I just swapped that thought. I traded it in, I returned it, and I bought the thought of I love taking care of my money. As a result, my money situation is completely different. I also love to believe it's safe to earn, spend, and save money because I find that one of those three, we feel a lot of lack of safety around. Some of you may feel it's not safe to earn. Some of you may feel it's not safe to spend. Some of you may feel it's not safe to save. You're like, "But wait, I may not have it tomorrow so let me spend it today," so even saving doesn't feel safe. I think all of it's safe.

I also love thinking, "I don't have to make money, I just have to open myself to receiving it," because we don't make money. Money is just out there. It's already been made, it's already been printed. It's just out there, flowing around between people and businesses, and to banks, and to real estate. It's just flowing. So many of us have just blocked ourselves off from allowing it to flow to and through us. I love the idea I don't have to make it, I just have to open myself to receiving it.

I also think, "People love paying me for the value we offer." People love paying for the value that we offer. That's a hard one for some of you all. You have a lot of thoughts about receiving money. I really encourage you to look at where did that come from. You got it at the Goodwill, I'm pretty sure. Because when I hang around people who are wealthy, in terms of finances, they don't have this thought. They really do believe, "Wow, people love paying me. They love paying me for what I have to offer," so they have so much evidence for it. Guess what? You can choose to believe that, too. Now you may have to work at it, you may have to put some effort into that one as I did. But that's why these thoughts are more expensive because they take more effort. But they're available to you. They're hanging on the rack in Neiman Marcus, you just have to walk in, have the courage to purchase it, and then wear that thought. Wear it until it's just who you are and what you do. That goes for any of these thoughts.

I also love thinking, "Money is just always flowing," sort of what I said earlier. It's just always flowing. It's not something that is scarce. There is so much money that's being printed as we speak. It's flowing around, it's going somewhere, you just have to be open to receiving it.

Now let's talk about time because you all have some thoughts about it. From what I've seen in many of you that I've coached, your thoughts are coming straight from the Goodwill. Thoughts like, "I don't have enough of it, I'm running out of it. I don't know how to manage it." This is the one area of my life that I feel like my thought wardrobe is on point. My relationship with time is probably the most beautiful relationship I have. I can say, for the most part, my whole life, I was thinking about this, I never have struggled that much with time. I've just always believed I have as much as I need. One of my favorite thoughts is there is no hurry.

Some of you may be thinking, "But wait, Tonya. Have you looked at my calendar? Have you looked at my schedule? Do you see all that's due?" I get it. My life right now, you may translate into being very hectic and would be very overwhelming for you. I have a lot of business projects, my team's about to fly in for a retreat. I have another mastermind that I'm going to. I'm in the process of moving into the house, so there's a lot of stuff that goes along with that. There's a lot going on. But the question I have for you is is that a useful thought to say, "I don't have enough time?" Does that change your relationship with time in a positive way, or does it just keep you in this anxious, panicked mode as it relates to time? I just choose to believe there is no hurry. I like the way that feels. The irony is when I think that, I'm more focused, I get more done, and I keep proving to myself there is no hurry.

When I do feel a little pressure, and I'm human so sometimes I do, I'm like, "There's quite a few tasks that are due today." I just love to say, "My life is full right now." My day is full, my life is full. It's a way better thought than, "I have so much to do, I'm so overwhelmed," and you just react. I'm like, "Oh no, at least I'm not bored. My life is full right now. My day is full."

When I really need to focus and get things done, I love the thought, "Right here, right now." Because what often happens is we set a big goal and we're like, "God, so much has to happen." I think about doing events. I'm going on tour this year so there are a lot of things that need to happen. But I'm always just like, "Right here, right now." Sometimes right here, right now is just, "Okay, decide the dates. Decide the locations." Right here, right now may mean, "Okay, now it's time for you to look for the venue. Now we need to write the copy." But right here, right now is where life is unfolding, it's where you take action, it's where the magic is.

If you find yourself future tripping, tripping over the future, and feeling a lot of anxiety around it, just be like, "Right here, right now, what needs to be done? What can I do right now to take action on that future that I'm so overwhelmed about?" Then this brings me to my final thought, which is very similar. This moment is where it's at. This moment, it's where it's at. I can't be in yesterday, I can't be in tomorrow, I can only be right here, right now.

Let's think about my thoughts about life. I don't know why this thought brings me so much joy and peace, but I love to think that life is just a game. I'm just here playing the best I can. I think we take life so seriously. But what if we just saw it as a game? When you have an obstacle, it's just like the game of Life. Literally, the game of Life. You figure out how to get over that hump. You collect your children, you buy the house. It's just a game. When you begin to see it as a game, when you encounter a challenge and an obstacle, you just know, "Oh, this is the part of the game where I get better at playing. This isn't the part where I quit, it's not the part where I fall apart. This is just the part where I learn something new about myself, I learn a new skill," whatever you need to learn to help you overcome that obstacle and challenge.

I love believing that failure is what dreams are built upon. This thought allows me to not be afraid of failure, but to embrace it, to walk towards the potential of it. Because if you're afraid to fail, you will never, ever succeed. I also love the thought, "Plan for tomorrow, but enjoy today," because sometimes I feel like we get caught between the two. We either think we have to be all in the future, always planning and then we neglect our days. Or we're like, "Well, we're not promised tomorrow, so we might as well enjoy today." I believe in the hybrid. I believe yes, plan for tomorrow, and then enjoy today by showing up for the plans that you've made. Figure out how to enjoy it. Stop and smell the roses. Appreciate what's around you right now because what's around you right now, you probably dreamt of some of it before. If you're not careful, you're just always running to the next thing, and never really enjoying today.

Then that brings me to my final thought about life. Actually, I have two more. One is over there and can only be as good as here. I've seen this so many times in my own life and in other people's lives. We fantasize about how great life will be over there when, and then we make ourselves miserable. And even if we get to that place, wherever you go, there you are. You'll find that it didn't hold all of the promises that you thought it was going to hold. That's why I believe in the journey to the dream should be as beautiful as the dream itself. Figure out how to love the life you have right now. Because what you focus on expands, so as you look at aspects of your life that you do enjoy, you do love, you're going to see more of that and you're going to experience more of it. You don't have to wait until one day to do that. In fact, waiting until one day just makes it so much harder.

Okay, here's my last thought about life. I have many, but these are some that I think can be really useful for you. In the world of personal development and law of attraction, there is this idea that if you feel negative emotion, you're going to attract negative things. Because we're all human and we all have negative emotions, because we have these brains that sometimes can go to scary places, we begin to fear the negative thoughts and the negative feelings. Are you with me? A thought that I have is that feeling bad cannot stop the magic. It's like my little hack. I just know that I can show up and do incredible things, and attract incredible things, even when I'm feeling bad. It just releases resistance, so when I'm feeling bad, it doesn't feel as bad because I'm not feeling bad about feeling bad. Are you with me? I'm not freaking out thinking, "Oh my God, I'm going to attract bad things because I'm a human and I'm having some bad feelings right now." I believe that the magic is accessible even when I'm feeling bad.

All right, thoughts about body and self-care. I believe self-care is a gift that I give to myself and the world. I believe the better I take care of myself, the better I show up, the more I have to give. It just takes that layer of guilt that I used to have around taking care of myself. It's okay to make me a priority because it's a gift that not only do I give myself, but it's a gift to my family, to my employees, to my clients, to my friends. It's a gift to everyone. I also love believing the body wants to heal. I love thinking about this when I'm sick. I loved this thought when my daughter was really sick. I just kept reminding myself, it was a thought that I wore every single day. The body wants to heal. It brought me peace, some peace, as much peace as I could access then. It just allowed me to focus on how can I help her heal, how can I help me heal?

I also love believing that my body is my friend. We get to hang out every day. I want to listen to her. I want to get to know her. I want to be good to her. I love thinking, "I love taking care of my body." I love taking care of my body.

Thoughts about love and relationships. I love loving him. I love loving him. Of course, I'm talking about Fonz, but I love loving him. All he has to do is sit there, and I get to love him. I get to appreciate him, I get to have fun with him. He can be doing whatever, it's something that I get to do and he's the recipient of it because the love is within me, I just get to put it all on him.

I also love believing that I'm so fun to love. Think about this thought. If you walk into a room and you're like, "I am so fun to love," think about how you show up. Because a lot of you are wearing that terrible Goodwill outfit that says, "I'm unlovable." You inherited it. You would have never gone into a store and bought that, but you've inherited it and you've worn it for so long, and it's the lens in which you see the world so you have probably evidence for it. You've probably pushed love away and attracted people that didn't appreciate you. It looks terrible on you. It's not your color, it's not your fit and it is so maybe 1970s, wherever you picked that thought up. I want you to consider that you are so fun to love. You are so fun to love. What if you allowed people to enjoy loving you? Knowing that you will attract the right people who appreciate the uniqueness of you, and you will repel the people who don't know how to love someone as fun as you are to love.

Then lastly, I love believing that love is always the answer. What would love do right now? It's a great question. Love is always the answer. Sometimes out of fear, out of hurt, we can go in and out of it. But that one thought always brings me back. Love is always the answer.

Listen, please borrow any of these thoughts. You can have them, I'll go buy more. But put them on, wear them around. They may feel a little awkward at first, they may not feel like your style only because you haven't worn them. Ever, maybe. But in time, if these thoughts are useful and they serve you, and you wear them long enough, they'll begin to feel like a beautiful, perfect fit. I hope you all had fun shopping my thought closet. I hope you have a beautiful week and I will see you in next week's episode.

Hey, before you go, let me ask you a quick question. When was the last time you truly treated yourself like royalty? From how you think, to how you speak to yourself, to how you eat and move through the world. Let's not forget, to enjoy daily pleasures. If it's been a while or if you're ready to take your self-care to the next level, I have an invitation for you. It's called The Royal Treatment, a five-day workshop where you'll discover how to infuse your life with the love, care, beauty, and respect that you deserve. Together, we'll create a personalized plan to help you feel invigorated and energized from the inside out. No more waiting, settling, or tolerating your life. It's time to claim your crown and treat yourself like the royalty that you are. Are you ready? Go to schoolofselfimage.com/royal and join us. I cannot wait to share this experience with you. I'll see you there.

Enjoy the Show? Don't miss another episode!Pick your favorite platform below:The Self-Image Manifesto

You’re Invited To Live An Extraordinary Life!

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Remember the anxiety of middle school dances – wanting to be chosen but dreading rejection?

Saying “no” used to feel like that. I feared hurt feelings and the potential abandonment that could follow.

But those forced “yeses” eroded my true self. I became a stretched-thin persona, not the vibrant me filled with energy and enthusiasm.

Last week, a request triggered the familiar guilt. This time, something shifted. The guilt lingered, but it became a sign: should I cling to the “always available” facade or embrace my limits?

This “no” journey is messy. Doubts arise, the old guilt whispers. But each honest decline reclaims a piece of me. “No” isn't rejection; it's declaring my worth, time, and energy.

This is my dance now: exploring boundaries, knowing that true connection thrives on honesty, not constant availability. The journey may be bumpy, but the freedom on the other side keeps attracting me.

Are you ready to explore your own boundaries and reclaim your time and energy? If that’s a “YES!” you’ll want to check out The Royal Treatment workshop I’m hosting next month.

You’ll walk away with a personalized plan for prioritizing self-care – no matter what’s going on – so you can create a life that lights you up. Next week, I’ll tell you how to say “yes!” to The Royal Treatment!

With love,

The Yeses That Come From Saying “No”What if saying “no” wasn't just about rejection but liberation? By understanding the whys behind your “no,” you unlock a treasure trove of “yeses” waiting to blossom.

Saying no to busy work creates space for meaningful projects
Saying no to draining relationships opens doors to fulfilling connections
Saying no to unrealistic expectations empowers you to pursue your own dreams

Every no is a boundary that guards your time and energy. By setting these boundaries, you say a resounding “yes” to self-respect, authenticity, and a life aligned with your values.

Your “no” is a powerful tool for cultivating a life filled with meaningful “yeses.”

Try it today: Choose one “no” and watch the “yesses” unfold!

No-Guilt-Zone LoungewearOne thing I definitely don’t say “no” to is quality loungewear. So, I have zero guilt about wearing this gorgeous blanket wrap from Barefoot Dreams.

I highly recommend this luxurious wrap if you're looking for something to throw on for your grocery store run or to take a spin around the block without compromising style. Yes, cozy and chic is a thing.

Purchase The Blanket Wrap HereThe Power of NoAre you constantly juggling too many commitments? Do you struggle to prioritize your own needs? Do you feel like you're running on empty? There’s one simple word that can change everything – “No.”

While saying “no” is hard for many of us, this tiny word is the key to unlocking an extraordinary life. In today’s podcast, I’m sharing how I overcame my own struggles with a simple two-letter word. Plus, I’ll reveal how you can leverage this powerhouse word to reclaim your time, energy, and well-being.

Listen to The Podcast// TheEDIT

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We all crave those days that feel energized, productive, and joyful. But sometimes, getting there can feel like a struggle.

Today, I want to share a simple secret: true delight often starts with embracing ourselves fully, flaws and all.

Forget the perfect Instagram-worthy day. My idea of “delightful” looks different:

Start strong: Wake up with intention, fuel your body, and set your mind for success. Think coffee, journaling, or whatever ignites your spark.
Own your power: Move your body, crush your workout, and wear that outfit that makes you feel unstoppable. Remember, confidence is magnetic.
Celebrate wins (big and small): Every completed task, conquered challenge, or friendly pickleball victory deserves a mental high-five. You rock!
Find joy in the little things: Appreciate the sunset, savor a delicious meal, and laugh with friends. Gratitude adds flavor to everyday moments.
Most importantly, love yourself: Ditch the self-doubt and appreciate your unique journey. You are worthy, capable, and awesome! It could be dancing, volunteering, or simply taking a mindful walk. What’s your idea of a delightful day?

If it’s been a while since you’ve found delight in your days or you’re not even sure what that looks like for you anymore, I’ve got you. Next month, I’m hosting one of my favorite workshops that will guide you through creating a custom plan for your days. And that includes a healthy dose of delight.

We’re putting the finishing touches on the workshop right now, but stay tuned for more information on how to join us. You won’t want to miss it!

With a smile and a supportive nudge,

Embracing Joy Without ApologyDespite society’s emphasis on productivity and busyness, you must make room for joy.

Laugh without worrying about what others think. Have random dance parties at home, sing badly in the shower, and chase sunsets just for the thrill. These moments might seem small, but together, they create a joyful life.

Don't feel guilty about seeking pleasure. It's not a waste of time – it rejuvenates you, sparks creativity, and builds resilience. Make the time to engage in activities that genuinely make you happy, and don’t feel one ounce of guilt.

Remember, joy isn't selfish; it spreads to those around you.

Dig Deeper JournalOne of the habits I’ve reestablished this year is consistent journaling. In addition to using The Daily 5 Journal, part of the School of Self-Image membership, I love this Dig Deeper Journal.

If you struggle with journaling or aren’t sure where to start, this journal is a great choice! It includes 180 thoughtful prompts that encourage self-reflection and help you better understand your true self.

Purchase The Journal Here5 Ways to Delight in YourselfWhen was the last time you took pleasure in being you? Enjoyed your own company? Or have done things to please and impress yourself?

In this week’s podcast, I’ll explain why life is better when you delight in yourself. Plus, I’m sharing 5 ways you can start delighting in yourself right now.

Listen to The Podcast// TheEDIT

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Listen to the Full Episode:Unveiling Your Inner Queen: The Power of Self-Respect and Self-Care

Giving yourself a royal treatment involves creating a personalized plan for self-care and self-respect. In this School of Self-Image, episode, host and master Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh, emphasizes the importance of treating oneself like royalty and prioritizing self-care. She shares the story of a client named Sarah who transformed her life by implementing a royal treatment plan tailored to her needs. This plan included setting boundaries at work, taking lunch breaks, exercising, and engaging in hobbies she enjoyed.

The concept of a royal treatment goes beyond superficial indulgences like spa days and manicures. It is about connecting with one's true nature, listening to internal cues, and establishing a strong inner kingdom. By tuning into one's body and soul, individuals can determine what they need to feel their best and align with their natural rhythm. This process involves building a strong relationship with oneself based on love, respect, and self-worth.

Tune in to learn why every woman needs to prioritize herself and treat herself like royalty.

Talking Points:00:00:00 - Introduction to the Royal Treatment

00:05:30 - The Consequences of Self-Neglect

00:10:16 - Overcoming Excuses for Self-Care

00:13:05 - Increased Confidence through Self-Care

00:17:32 - Attractiveness and Energy

00:21:31 - Unveiling Your True Nature

00:24:34 - Building a Strong Inner Kingdom

00:26:19 - Invitation to the Royal Treatment Workshop

Useful Resources:* The Royal Treatment Workshop: https://schoolofselfimage.com/ROYAL * Join the membership: https://schoolofselfimage.com/join * FREE Download: https://schoolofselfimage.com/self-image-manifesto/ * Sign up for the weekly Edit: http://schoolofselfimage.com/edit

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello, my friends. Welcome back to the podcast. You may already hear that my voice is a little different today because I've been struggling with a cold, but I committed to getting this podcast done and here we are. And I just realized that the day that this podcast will be released is a very special day. It is my daughter's birthday. And so a big shout-out to my girl, Sarah, happy birthday. I am so proud to be your mama and I'm so proud of you. Being a mother is a really interesting thing. It's like the moment you have this kid, you all of a sudden seem to matter so much less. I know you all know what I'm talking about. And you get so busy making sure that your kids are okay and that they have everything that they need, and that they're eating well and they're doing well in school and they're getting to all of their events and that they're growing up to be amazing humans.

And in the process, if you're not mindful, you forget about yourself. And for some of you, maybe you don't have kids, but it's work, it's family, it's parents, it's everybody else but yourself. And you find yourself that you have put yourself on the back burner. I remember, I don't know, it was five, six years ago. I've talked about it on the podcast before, but Sarah became really sick. And I found myself completely neglecting my own self-care between taking care of her and trying to figure out what in the world was happening and running my business. I had put myself on the back burner and I don't know where I mustered up the energy because I was running on fumes. And I'll never forget a friend asking me, when are you going to start treating yourself like a queen? And I started to think about that one question and what it would look like even in the midst of life, in the midst of chaos with everything going on around me, what would it look like and feel like and what would result in me treating myself like a queen?

And that's when I began to play around with the concept of giving myself a royal treatment. I like to think of this as a beautiful reset and then a way of life. It's a whole new way of being where you think about yourself, you treat yourself, and you walk through the world with a sense of self-regard and self-respect. For a moment, imagine you being the queen of your life. Every decision, and every action will flow from a place of deep self-love and self-respect. It sounds amazing. I have conversations with so many of you who come to me and tell me that you are exhausted, that you're running on fumes, that you don't know how you're going to get from one day to the next. And you keep putting this essential part of your life on the back burner between work and families and a million other commitments. You find yourself running yourself ragged.

And the hope is one day I'll make it a priority. One day when the kids are older, one day when I'm working less, one day when I have more time, one day when I get the motivation. And in the meantime, you are dwindling physically, spiritually, and emotionally. And unfortunately, sometimes it takes hitting rock bottom to wake you up. I have a very dear client who is in the School of Self-Image membership and ended up in the hospital with a heart attack. It was then that she had her wake-up call that she had to literally live her life differently, or it was going to kill her. And I don't say this to scare you all, but sometimes a little fear can put a fire under our fannies. Sometimes we need to look at what is going to happen if I keep living like this. What is going to be the result a year from now, five years from now, 10 years from now if I continue to neglect my own self-care?

Think of it like this. You wouldn't try to drive across the country on an empty tank, yet so often we tackle our lives with depleted reserves. And this is exactly why every woman needs a royal treatment. She needs to treat herself royally. She needs to make her self-care a priority. She needs to stop waiting for the scraps and start putting herself at the front of the line of the buffet. And the way to do that is to decide. Decide you are no longer available for your own self-neglect. And sometimes we need a little bit of motivation. We need to have a big why. And so I want to share with you some of the reasons why giving yourself a royal treatment is so beneficial for your life. Because if we can begin to tie doing it with what we want to create in the world, sometimes that is exactly what we need to motivate us to actually show up for it.

I think about a client that I had, we'll call her Sarah, and she was a total go-getter. She was working long hours, she was volunteering at her kid's school. She barely slept, but she was constantly exhausted and frustrated and she felt like she was failing at everything. And so when we started to work together, she started to create her own royal treatment plan. And it's going to look different for all of us because what invigorates me and what energizes me may be different for you. That's why it's so important for you to listen and pay attention to your own intuition. But for Sarah, the way it translated into her royal treatment plan was she started setting boundaries at work. She started to take lunch breaks. I know shockingly, she was skipping lunch, and she started to carve out time for exercise and even hobbies that she enjoyed.

And I'll never forget talking with her a couple of months later, and she was a completely different person. Her energy, her vibe, her whole weight of being was different. She had more energy, she had more confidence. And she told me, she was like, "I'm finally getting things done. I don't feel like I'm just running from one thing to the next, never really accomplishing anything." And she was enjoying her life more. And that's one of the benefits of a royal treatment, is that you get your energy back. You literally create a plan around the activities, the thoughts, the foods that give you energy and you begin to edit your life of the things that deplete your energy. And this doesn't happen overnight. This is a process. But what if, what if, you removed three things this week from your life that is zapping your energy and you replaced it with three things that give you energy, you're putting a little bit more gas in your tank to help you get to where you want to go.

It's so fascinating how so many of us are so afraid to slow down. We are so afraid to take the time to take care of ourselves. We have this belief that if we do, the world is going to fall apart. Think about how crazy this idea is, because you literally need energy to keep your world together, and yet you are running yourself ragged, depleting your energy resources, trying to create what it is that you want to create and it just doesn't work. If you think about taking a road trip, let's just say from the East Coast to the West Coast, if you don't stop and fill that tank, you're going to have to stop for a long time. You'll have to walk to the gas station, it's going to take up a lot of time. Maybe you sit there and wait for AAA, however, you get your gas, versus taking stops along the way to refuel.

Yeah, you have to stop, but you're going to have to stop eventually anyway. One is just planned. It has more ease. It's you taking care of yourself along the journey versus seeing how far you can go before you literally run out of gas. And so it's a way to keep the sustainable energy going in your life. And here's what I have to tell you all. For those of you who own a business and I talk with a lot of you, you are so afraid of going for your workouts, you're telling me, but I've got all of these things that are due. I've got copy to create and I've got podcasts to record, and I've got clients to work with and I have to do an Instagram live and I've got a class to teach and I've got, fill in the blank. There are always going to be things to do.

And so you don't take time for yourself, and I want you to think about the result of that. How does it affect your energy level? And then what is the cascade effect of that? You don't think as clearly, you're not as productive as you could be, and all the while you start to feel bad about yourself, maybe you're gaining weight, you're not sleeping well, you got bags under your eyes, you don't have the energy to even think about putting on a decent outfit for the day. You're just exhausted. You're just trying to get from one task to the next. What kind of life is that? And if you would just trust that you taking care of yourself is the energy that you need to create an extraordinary life, then maybe you would get on board with this idea, and that's what I'm offering you. It's an invitation to experiment with it, to try it out, to put yourself first on your calendar, which is exactly what I do.

In fact, I will be talking about this in my upcoming workshop called the Royal Treatment. I've been running this workshop for, gosh, I think three years now, and every time I do this workshop, I have so many women tell me this was exactly the reset that I needed. This woke me up. It gave me tangible steps that I can begin to take to be the queen of my life and to treat myself accordingly. Within our five days together, you will create your own personalized royal treatment plan and it will be doable, it will be powerful, and it will be a jumping-off point for a whole new way of being in your life. And so that workshop again is coming up soon if you want to take this work deeper because every woman needs this. I'm a huge believer in that.

We would love to have you. You can go to Schoolofselfimage.com/royal, and get ready to show up in the world and for yourself, most importantly, in a whole new way. I am so excited about this workshop and I cannot wait to see you there. The other benefit of giving yourself the royal treatment is you will have increased confidence. Now, let me explain to you why. Confidence is something that you create with your thoughts, with your mind. It is a belief in your abilities, it's trusting in yourself and believing in yourself. So let's look at what happens when you don't take care of yourself. You begin to lose trust in yourself because imagine another person who neglects you, someone that you thought was your partner or your friend, and they're just neglecting you. They're not taking care of you. They don't show up for your engagements, they don't call you back. They don't have nice things to say to you.

You don't have confidence in that person because you don't trust that person any longer. And yet so often that is who we are being to ourselves. And so how does that affect the rest of your life? How does it affect how you show up in relationships, and how you show up in your business? It all starts and ends with you. Think of it like this. When you take the time to take care of yourself, number one, think about what that does to your self-image. It is you saying to yourself, I matter, I love myself and I respect myself. And if you've listened to this podcast for any length of time you know the power of your self-image, how you see yourself is creating your entire life.

The world is just a reflection of your own self-image. And so when you neglect yourself, think about the powerful message that that's sending to you. I don't matter. My needs don't matter. I'm not that important. I don't really respect myself. And that has a detrimental impact on your confidence. And so many of you come to me and you're telling me all of these things that you want to create in your life, and it requires a level of self-confidence to create it, but you're not starting with the basics of just taking care of yourself. Over the last year, and especially within the last six, or seven months, I have made a commitment to myself to really focus on my health and wellbeing. And I've been going to the gym. I'm feeling so strong, and I've been watching myself and noticing how I am feeling more confident than I've ever felt in my life.

When I told my team that I was not going to take any meetings before 11:00 AM because I was going to take the time in the morning for my journaling and working out and all of my self-care activities, when I have told people no to certain invitations because they conflicted with my own self-care, when I get up in the morning when that alarm goes off, even though my brain is telling me you should just sleep in, you deserve it. When I do those things and I've done those things, it just creates this deep trust with myself, this feeling of, girl, I've got you. And that has an effect on all of the other areas of my life. So then I have more energy. And so I'm showing up for my team and for my clients in a more expansive way. My brain is clear and so my results are better. I'm better able to make decisions. I get more done actually because I'm not running off of fumes.

And so you can see how it just begins to increase your confidence because now your results are even getting better, all from giving yourself a royal treatment. And this just isn't a one-time treatment. This is a way of being in your life. Another benefit of The Royal Treatment is that it makes you more attractive. And I'm not just talking about physical attractiveness, although you'll probably find that that happens too. I remember when I was not giving myself the royal treatment when I was basically neglecting myself. I remember looking in the mirror and thinking, my goodness, I felt like I'd aged. I lost a bunch of weight. I just didn't look healthy at all. And I know I'm not alone in this. I know some of you are experiencing some of the same things. You're like, where did that girl go that really felt good and liked what she saw in the mirror?

And what I can tell you is that she's still there. You just have to take care of her. You have to bring her back to life. But when I talk about being more attractive, what I am talking about beyond that is how you feel and what you attract as a result, because it is true like that attracts like. On the days when I have felt low energy, I notice the thoughts that I'm attracted to, and they're usually low-energy thoughts. I think about the things that my brain starts to pay attention to. And without some management and guidance, it will start to focus in on the things that I think are going wrong and all of the things that I have to do. And then all of a sudden I'm getting calls from people that I really don't want to talk to. It's like I begin to attract more things to feed that energy.

But when you start to give yourself the royal treatment, some crazy things start to happen because your energy is going to start to shift. You're going to start paying attention to different things. You're going to start to focus in different directions. You're going to start to have different conversations and different opportunities, and people are going to be attracted to this radiance and this vibrancy that you have about you. It is the law of attraction in action. If you were a magnet, would you rather attract rusty old nails or shiny gold coins? I'm guessing your answer is shiny gold coins. And that's exactly what begins to happen when you treat yourself like a queen. I see this all of the time within the membership. When a woman begins to see herself as a queen, she starts talking to herself differently.

She stops letting excuses hold her back. She starts setting boundaries and she makes self-care a priority. There is a magnetism to that. Imagine a queen holding court. People are naturally drawn to her charisma and her presence. And so when you treat yourself like royalty, you project that same kind of magnetic energy and people will be drawn to your confidence, your vitality, and your zest for life. That energy that you're creating just by taking care of yourself. And for the people that aren't, for the people that are turned off by it and they have things to say, they may call you a Pollyanna. They may think you're so full of yourself. Those aren't your people. If people don't like you because now all of a sudden you're taking care of yourself, then you need to question if those people belong in your life. You want to attract people who celebrate your essence, who celebrate your care of yourself, who encourage it.

And that's exactly what will happen when you start making yourself a priority when you start giving yourself the royal treatment. The other benefit that happens from giving yourself a royal treatment is that you begin to unveil your true nature. This goes beyond bubble baths and spa days and manicures, although I am all for those things. This is about you connecting with your true natural self. Think about animals. They intuitively prioritize their needs. They sleep when they're tired. They eat when they're hungry. They hunt when they need to. They stretch their bodies when they need to move. Humans are no different. You can think about babies, children will let you know when they are hungry. They tell the world when they have needs. They laugh when something's funny. They cry when it's not. They have a natural way of trying to get care. Although as a child and as a baby, you need other people to support you and your needs, but you have no qualms with letting people know, Hey, look out for me, take care of me.

But unfortunately, we're socialized out of that. And the thing is, when we deny ourselves basic self-care, we disrupt our natural rhythm and we create a lot of disharmony in our lives. I remember reading a study about a group of women who were put on a strict diet and exercise program. And while they lost weight initially, most of them ended up regaining it all and often more. Why? Because the program felt restrictive and punishing. It was out of harmony with life's natural rhythm. If we just stop and tune into our bodies and tune into our souls, we all have this, number one, intuition. And we also have this internal GPS system, and we have physical cues that are happening all of the time. And in order to listen to them, you have to tune into them, which requires that you care for yourself enough to listen for what you need.

And that's what The Royal Treatment is all about. It's not following other people's rules for you. It's not about following some program or some formula. It's about you determining what do I need. What do I need to feel my best, to have more energy, to feel vibrant, to feel in harmony with myself? And yes, it's about listening to your body, but it's also about listening to your soul. And that's what queens do. They listen to themselves and they trust themselves enough to follow their own guidance. And it brings you back into this beautiful natural harmony with life and with yourself. And that brings me to the last benefit of why you need a royal treatment. It allows you to build what I like to call a strong inner kingdom. This is about you cultivating a strong relationship with yourself because let's be honest, we spend a lot of time with ourselves, and can't really escape ourselves. We may try, but wherever we go, there we are.

What do you want that relationship to be like? I want it to be one of love and respect. And that requires that you make self-care a priority. And when you do, you're sending a powerful message to your inner self that you are worthy, you are loved, that you deserve the best, and that you've got you. And perhaps that one benefit is the best of all because there's nothing worse than knowing that you are letting yourself down, that you don't see yourself as worthy enough or important enough to make yourself a priority. When everybody else becomes a priority and you get lost in the mix, it starts to break down your inner kingdom. And no matter what it is that you want to create in the world, whether you want to build your business, you want to find the love of your life, you want to travel the world, you want to write a book, you want to sell your house and downsize, no matter what it is, it needs to be built on a strong foundation. And that strong foundation is the relationship that you have with you.

And when that relationship is solid, let me tell you, my friends, everything else becomes so much easier. And that relationship can only be solid if you are taking the time to take care of yourself. So if you are feeling like you're in a rut, if you are low on energy, if you feel like you need a reset, if you're listening to me and you're thinking, God, I need this, come and join us for The Royal treatment workshop where you're going to create a plan as to how you're going to think, speak, eat, move, and delight like a queen. And let me tell you, this is my promise. When you begin to practice the plan that you create for yourself, it is going to have the most beautiful cascading effect in every area of your life. And most importantly, and I want you to hear this, it is going to up-level the relationship you have with yourself.

And when that relationship is solid, again, everything else becomes so much easier. It's time for you to be your own best friend, your own advocate, your biggest cheerleader. It's time for you to put that crown back on your head and give yourself the royal treatment. And if you want support in doing this, come and join us for the five-day workshop. You can go to Schoolofselfimage.com/royal, and I will see you there. Have a beautiful week, my friends. Take care.

Hey, before you go, let me ask you a quick question. When was the last time you truly treated yourself like royalty from how you think to how you speak to yourself, to how you eat and move through the world? And let's not forget, enjoying daily pleasures. If it's been a while, or if you're ready to take your self-care to the next level, I have an invitation for you. It's called the Royal Treatment, a five-day workshop where you'll discover how to infuse your life with the love, care, beauty, and respect that you deserve. Together we'll create a personalized plan to help you feel invigorated and energized from the inside out. No more waiting, settling, or tolerating your life. It's time to claim your crown and treat yourself like the royalty that you are. Are you ready? Go to Schoolofselfimage.com/royal and join us. I cannot wait to share this experience with you. I'll see you there.

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Listen to the Full Episode:Creating Your Couture Life: The Power of Dream Fittings!

In this episode, Tonya Leigh discusses the concept of a "couture life" custom-made to fit our souls. She introduces the idea of "dream fittings" and emphasizes the importance of pursuing our dreams.

Tonya also discusses the significance of working on one's identity and self-image. She points out that many people neglect this aspect of personal development, which can lead to feeling stuck and self-sabotage. By not working on our identity, individuals may struggle to create the life they truly want.

Tonya emphasizes the need to prioritize this aspect of personal development encourages listeners to explore their true desires and aspirations and explores the importance of tangible experiences, trying things on to test out dreams and goals. She encourages individuals to actively engage in real-world situations to gain a better understanding of what truly aligns with their passions and values. Enjoy this insightful 'Dream Fittings' episode.

Episode breakdown: 02:26 Appreciating the ordinary * 05:58 A couture life * 09:23 Fear of failure and confidence * 13:48 Finding a fitting dream * 8:00 Dream fittings and exploration * 20:31 Blessings in disguise * 30:47 Join to learn more QuotesUseful Resources: Join Now! https://schoolofselfimage.com/join* * *FREE Download: https://schoolofselfimage.com/self-image-manifesto/* * Join us at SOSI South!: *http://schoolofselfimage.com/south * Sign up for the Weekly Edit!: http://schoolofselfimage.com/EDIT

Connect with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: Website: https://schoolofselfimage.com * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tonyaleigh * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TonyaLeighOfficial * TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thetonyaleigh * YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TonyaLeighOfficial* DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTI believe that there is a couture life waiting for each of us. A life that is custom made to fit for our souls. But it's going to require that you do one thing and probably do a lot of it. And it's what I call dream fittings. And it's what we're talking about in this episode.

So let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self Image where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, Master Life Coach Tonya Leigh..

Hello, my gorgeous friends. How are you doing? I'm so excited because I am getting ready to leave to go spend Labor Day weekend with my parents. And they are so excited. And I am equally just as excited. My mom is the cutest. You won't believe what she did. She knows that I love to play pickleball. And she went on Amazon and bought this whole setup for her driveway, basically turning it into a pickleball court. We are going to be playing pickleball literally in the middle of a cornfield because that's where she lives. It's in the middle of nowhere. But she always goes out of her way for her family. She has taken orders from everyone wanting to know what everybody wants to eat.

Of course, everybody wants something different. I want her to make her famous potatoes that are delicious. It's potato and parsley and garlic. Yum. Sarah's wanting gluten free pasta salad. Fonz is wanting grits. It's like everybody puts in their order. And then my mom just makes it happen. And it brings her so much joy. And it makes me so happy to see my mom so happy. And so I am so excited just to have a whole weekend of literally doing nothing but spending quality time with the people that I love the most. It's going to be so much fun.

You know, it really is the simple things. It's the moments like the ones I'm about to have that I think I'll look back on at the end of my life and say, God, I wish I would have had more of those. And so I don't want to live with regrets. And so I'm trying to have more of those moments and appreciate the beauty of the ordinary. Because when you really appreciate the ordinary, that's when it becomes extraordinary. A lot of times we think extraordinary is in the result. It's in the act. But really, it's about your experience of it. Life in and of itself is extraordinary. If you think about the sun rising every day and you don't even have to make it happen, it just does it on its own. That's extraordinary. And yet most people don't even think about the sun rising. They don't even appreciate it. They don't take it in. They don't savor it. And recently, I've just had this deep feeling of waking up to life in a whole new way. And I'm just so excited. I'm so excited about going to my parents this weekend. And do you know what else I'm excited about?

The School of Self-Image membership. We are about to close the doors for enrollment. And we are currently welcoming in new members. And I'm just excited for them. Every time we have new women come into the group, I love how the rest of the community rallies around them. I appreciate the passion. I appreciate the honesty. I appreciate the transparency of where they are and also the excitement about where they're going. And I always look forward to helping each and every one of them create their after story, whatever that looks like for them. And so helping them get clear on what that is, helping them look at what is holding them back from it, looking at what they need to add into their lives to create it, and essentially helping them become the woman who can create what it is that they want. That's what we do within the membership. And so if you want to work on your self-image, which is the most important work you'll ever do, it's creating your entire life. And yet very few people spend time working on their identity, which is why so many people are struggling right now. It's why so many people feel stuck.

It's why so many people sabotage themselves because they don't work on the number one thing that is determining the quality of their life. And that is their self-image. So my friend, if you know that this is the work that you really need to be doing, I would love to welcome you into the membership. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com forward slash join. You can read all about it. And there are two options. There is the option to join as a monthly member. You can come in, you can try it on, see how it feels. And then there's the option to join as an annual member.

This is for the woman who knows that she's in, she's committed, she wants to give herself a year to dive into this work. And she also wants to get access to some exclusive bonuses such as the slim self-image and the wealthy woman. So you can choose either of the two options. Always choose the one that feels best to you. But again, I would love, love, love to see you in the membership. So again, schoolofselfimage.com forward slash join. Now, I am so excited about today's topic. For the longest time, I have loved the idea of a couture life and the way I like to describe a couture life is it's living at the highest level of quality and personalization.

Most of us are living a ready to wear life. It's a life that has been designed for us. It is a life that we think we should be living. But I believe there is a couture life waiting for all of us. And so how do we figure out what that life is? And that's been a lot of my work over the last 15 years, figuring out what we want and then figuring out who we need to become in order to create it. And so I love this idea of trying on your dreams. I call it dream fittings. And it's a lot like going into a store and seeing something that you think, oh, wow, I really love how that looks on the mannequin. Let me try it on and see how it looks on me. Because we all know sometimes what looks good on the mannequin does not look good on us. But how do we know until we try it on? And this is what I see a lot of people doing.

They will see a dream on someone else and automatically think, oh, I want that without ever trying it on to see, does it really fit me? So it's important to try on your dreams in real life because it allows you to test drive them to see if it's really right for you. Because often we have idealized visions of what we want based on what society has told us is success, based on what we see other people going for. But trying it in reality can reveal a whole new perspective. For example, someone may dream of being an actor, but they may find that through community theater experience that they don't really enjoy performing as much as they thought. You know, it happened to me when I was thinking about becoming a master sommelier. I thought it would be so much fun to work in the wine industry.

That is until I created a wine program for a country club and I was having to be there later in the evenings. And Sarah was young and I wanted to be at home and I could see by trying on that dream, I realized, wow, this isn't a good fit. I don't want to be working late at night in restaurants. The idea of it seemed fun. And as soon as I tried it on, I was like, no, that's not it.

Now here's the beautiful thing. When you try dreams on, there will be parts of that dream that you may love. And then there may be parts that you don't. This is what it looks like to piece together a couture life. So for example, when I think about becoming a sommelier, I love the idea of having that knowledge. The idea of having it as a pastime, not as an occupation. So when it comes to dream fittings, some of the things that can hold you back if you're not mindful is your fear of failure. Because sometimes when you try on a dream, it's not going to work out. It's going to fail. You're going to be like, no, I am not cut out for this. Also your lack of confidence in your abilities. It's really interesting, this concept of confidence, because a lot of times we think confidence comes from experience. And yes, the more we do things and we get better at doing them, we do build confidence in that area because our thoughts about our capabilities change. We are more confident in our confidence.

But confidence is just believing in yourself. It's believing that no matter what's going to happen, you're going to be okay. And that you're going to learn and you're going to grow. And for every single one of us, there was a time when we had not done what we're doing. There is a first time for everything. And so if you wait for the experience to have confidence, you're never going to have confidence. But so many people don't go out there and try on a dream because they're so afraid that they don't have what it takes. Some people have financial constraints and they think that's the reason why they can't try on a dream. And I'm going to beg to differ that with creativity, you can figure out how to try on a dream, even if you have financial constraints. I have done it. I used to dream of staying in beautiful five-star hotels. And I couldn't afford it at the time. But do you know what I did? I went and sat my fanny in the lobby free. It didn't cost me a thing. I just tried on to get into the energy to fill it out. Do I love this? Do I like it? Is it what I think it's going to be? And it turns out it is.

I love beautiful surroundings. I appreciate beautiful hotels. It's not for everyone, but it's something that I personally value. And the reason I know that is because I tried on the dream. I experienced it because believe it or not, not everybody loves fancy hotels, but they may think they're supposed to love it because they hear me talking about how I love it. And so they may go off chasing a dream that's not even their dream. It's not a part of their couture life. So you have to stay in touch with what turns you on and what feels true to you. And you can't do that by sitting around just being in your head thinking about it. You need to put yourself in real world situations so you can feel it out. We can also hold ourselves back because we get so comfortable in our current situation. I see this a lot. You can become stagnant and life can start to feel really mundane and you can start to feel restless. But you're like, geez, Tanya, it's really comfortable where I am. But no matter where you are in life, I always encourage you to have a dream fitting, something that you are curious about, something that you want to try on to see how it fits. You know, a dream is a good fit when trying it on brings you energy, passion and a sense of purpose to your life. And fitting dreams may still present challenges, but trying them feels intrinsically rewarding.

When a dream fits, you'll find yourself wanting to keep growing and learning and experiencing more. And for me, I personally remember when I first started my coaching business, what, 15 years ago, long time ago, I was so excited. I could not wait to wake up every single day and get to work to serve, to create content, to tell people about what I was doing. Now, there was a lot of discomfort and continues to be along the way. But the dream still fits me beautifully today. I am living that dream and it energizes me most days. It gives me a sense of purpose and I'm constantly growing not only as a coach, but also as a business owner. Now, what about when a dream doesn't fit? What I know from experience is when you try it on, it's going to leave you feeling drained, frustrated, maybe disappointed. Now, to be clear, I'm not talking about the journey of realizing your dream. I'm just talking about the original fitting.

Because when you decide that a dream fits and you're ready to go all in on it, you're going to have some frustrating days. You're probably going to have some disappointments because it's not going to happen overnight. You are definitely going to have some obstacles, probably some failures. There will be some days that you might feel drained. You may think, oh, it's because the dream doesn't fit. But I'm talking about when you first put it on and you visualize you living in that dream. You're already there. How does that feel? A great example for my own life is when I moved to Puerto Rico. I tried on the dream. I moved there and instantly I was like, no, I was disappointed. I was frustrated. I was drained. I'm like, this doesn't fit. And so I immediately moved. Now, some people may say, oh my God, honey is so flaky. She doesn't know what she wants. No, I'm just someone who's willing to get it wrong. I'm someone who's willing to fail.

I'm someone who is willing to experiment because I know that the best way to create a couture life is to try a lot of different things on. And a lot of you are so afraid of what other people are going to think. You're so afraid of being called flighty or flaky that you're not willing to experiment. But as I was telling members of the community yesterday, I did a call and I was like, listen, I have gone off from probably my couture life path many, many times. And that is the process. You get pulled towards something and then you get over there and you're like, oh, this isn't it. And then you come back. It's like playing hot and cold. You stay in touch with what feels exciting, energizing, joyful, liberating. And you constantly move towards that. And then you notice when you're off your path and things feel heavy and frustrating and just draining. And so all along, I've gone on and off the path. And you all have probably witnessed me do that. But the general trajectory has always been the same because something in me stays connected to that core. And so I go off, but I come back. And that's what it looks like to try on dreams. And I'm just willing to try on some ugly dreams that don't fit me. And sometimes part of the dream fits. This is what I find sometimes when I'm doing new programs.

I'm willing to experiment. I know that I have something to offer. I know that it will be of great service. And so I put it together and I deliver it. And I feel good about parts of it. But other parts, I'm like, oh, that could be better. But I will not know that until I do it, until I tried on. And a lot of you are trying to get it perfect before ever trying it on. So no wonder you feel frustrated. No wonder you're in confusion. No wonder you feel like your life isn't moving that fast. Because in order to create a couture life, you have to be willing to put things on and try them on. And the quicker you do that and figure out what works and what doesn't work, the more momentum you're going to get in your life. So I hope you're seeing how important it is to get tangible experience to test out your dreams and goals. That's why we encourage our kids to go out there and maybe take a gap year or get an internship, try things on. And it's no different for us adults. So let me offer you some ideas, some examples of dream fittings that you may want to consider. Maybe you could spend a day shadowing someone in your dream career field to get a sense of what a typical workday is like.

Maybe you could do a short term house swap with someone in your ideal neighborhood to get a feel for living there. Maybe you can test drive your dream car to see if it really lives up to your expectations. Maybe you can shop for an outfit that you would wear for a dream job interview to visualize yourself in that role. You can take a trip to a new city that you're thinking about moving to. That's what I did last year. And I hear a lot of you say, I want to move somewhere, but I don't know where. And so you're sitting around just hoping that the answer falls out of the sky and it's not. You're going to have to go out there and try it on. And so last year I knew that I wanted to buy a house and I'd actually put in an offer for house in Denver. And it was right when the frenzy of house buying was going on and I didn't get the house. Thankfully it was a blessing in disguise. And so after I didn't get the house, I was sitting around and I was thinking maybe Denver isn't the place. I know that for me, I was getting sick every winter with a bronchial infection and I feel better in humidity. And so just from a physical standpoint, I'm like, I think I need to move. I think I need to find a new environment. And so I was playing around with ideas and one weekend I thought, let me go try on Charlotte.

I have been thinking about moving back to the South and being closer to my parents, but I knew I wanted a city. I wanted a place that had a big airport. And so it's important for you to think about these things. What are the must haves of where you want to live and then start to go try places on. And so I think it was like the next weekend I came to Charlotte, me and Fonz and we were just driving around and I was feeling it. I was feeling the city and I knew I'm like this fits. Now will it fit forever? I don't need to know that. A lot of you all are thinking so long term and you're making the dream so big. It's so overwhelming. You don't even try it. I was asking, does it fit my life right now? And it felt so good. So that weekend I bought some land and found a builder and our house should be done hopefully in the next six months. But it all started with a dream fitting. Another way that you can try on a dream is to volunteer for an organization that you may want to work for to try out the culture, see how it fits.

Maybe you want to sit in on a class or lecture related to an area of studies that you're interested in. You may want to join a sports team or a club to see if you enjoy the sport. If you want to live abroad someday, you can maybe just go to that country for a week and see what is it like? Could I see myself living here long term? Do you dream of, I don't know, maybe performing live music? Well, you can go try and open mic night to get on stage and see how it feels. Do you think you would love living in a tiny home? Well go rent one on Airbnb and see what it's like to live in that small space. Do you think you'd want to work in fashion? We'll see if you can intern backstage at a fashion show. So think about something that maybe you've been dreaming about, that you've been curious about that keeps popping up for you because it's there because it wants to be explored. Now is it your for sure forever dream? I don't know.

But the only way to know is to get a small dose of the real experience instead of just sitting around and imagining it. Testing your dreams out in little ways to see how they fit is the key to living a couture life. And so what is that dream that you want to try on? I would love, love, love to hear about it. So come and find me on Instagram at Tonya Lee and share your next dream fitting. Have a beautiful week my friends. And don't forget enrollment is open for the School of Self Image. So go to schoolofselfimage.com forward slash join and let's go. Let's do this.

Hey, are you ready to transform your self image but lack direction and support? If so, I'd like to invite you to join the School of Self Image. This is an exclusive monthly membership where you'll create your own powerful before and after story. Through weekly classes and coaching, you'll learn powerful techniques on how to elevate the quality of your mindset, style and surroundings to change how you see yourself and create extraordinary results in your life. Head over to schoolofselfimage.com forward slash join to learn more. Go to schoolofselfimage.com/join to learn more.

Episode Transcript:Enjoy the Show? Don't miss another episode!Pick your favorite platform below:The Self-Image Manifesto

You’re Invited To Live An Extraordinary Life!

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Level-headed. Relaxed. Calm. Laid back. I’m talking about my dad, the chillest man I know. (This issue is for him.)

I once thought he may be hiding a secret love for weed because he’s THAT chill. Turns out he’s never tried it in his entire life. It’s just his demeanor.

I remember loving to be around my dad as a child. When the world felt chaotic, he would sometimes laugh at the “serious things” - making them feel not so serious after all.

When I was triggered or upset, my dad would often say, “Honey, let it be water off a duck’s back.”

Occasionally, when he thought the situation warranted a response, he’d suggest,

“Take a breath and think it through before you say anything.”

Chill is truly his superpower, and I think it can be ours too.

You’re logical. You’re proactive, and you’re happier because you’re not sweating the small stuff.

I’ve told you before that I identify as a high-maintenance woman… but I also identify as having high energy, high expectations, and high anxiety.

So it’s taken some serious inner work for me to find my calm - the inspiration of this edition of The Edit - The Chill Issue.

I hope to be even more like my dad as I get older. Composed. Cool. Chill. Read on if you need some more calm in your life, too.

Love,

P.S. Have you seen the good news? The doors to the School of Self-Image are open! Become a member here. We’ve been having the best week ever in Week of Calm, and just in case you didn’t decide to join us, I have to let you know that when you become a member of the School of Self-Image, you’ll receive access to all of the Week of Calm recordings in the membership - so you won’t miss a beat on finding your calm.

Join the School of Self-ImageNothing About You is Set in StoneDid you ever hear about neuroplasticity? It’s this amazing quality about our brains. It means they change. They adapt. They respond.

So when one of my ladies says, “I’m shy.” or “I’m disorganized.” or “I’m broke.” I just remind her that all of that can change. Nothing about you is set in stone (except maybe your height… but even then, there’s always heels!)

Thinking something is set in stone is what makes it so. How do you change it? Practice a new self-image until you become it.

How do you do that? With the Self-Image Method. Join the School of Self-Image.

Learn MoreHow to Start a Whole New Life with Leanne Letica“It’s been a year since I realized one of my extraordinary goals: to leave Australia and start a new life in Europe.

Here is what I’ve learned in the process.

Making such a big move requires a lot of courage and mindset work. It took being able to look at my reflection in the mirror and 100% believe that the woman reflected back at me was worthy, deserving, and capable of having everything she desires in life.

Everything falls into place as it needs to if you just trust in the process. There are no shortcuts in life to any journey worthwhile taking, and there shouldn’t be because the view along the way is truly magnificent if you stop to enjoy it. But you MUST know your why and your WHY must be strong enough.

I’ve experienced the absolute void of walking away from all those who do not serve me (and a life that did not serve me) and having that void filled so warmly and overwhelmingly with the family that I’ve chosen and who have undeniably chosen me. Immersing myself in an environment where I am celebrated and not merely tolerated has been liberating, invigorating and massively empowering.

Who you believe you are and where you believe you belong in the world is everything. For many years, I never believed being an expat and living in Europe was something that was for me. That was for other people.

When I rewrote that story, we realized our move to Europe within a year.

Deciding to love the outcome is crucial to a positive experience regardless of the challenges. Over the past year, I’ve met expats who don’t enjoy their life here because they just can’t feel at home in their strange new country. They struggle with the tiniest cultural differences and live their daily lives with so much resistance to the local rules and customs. I felt like I’d arrived home the minute we got here, and the local ways are a source of fascination to me as opposed to frustration. Why? Because I decided BEFORE I came that this was my home, that I’d love it, and I was here for the full experience. You belong exactly where you decide you belong and you can belong anywhere you choose (or choose not to).

The verdict on my move?

My 2022 magazine cover said it would be an Audacious year and moving to Europe would be a game changer… it has been exactly that ”

The School of Self-Image RecapBecoming a member of the School of Self-Image is the ultimate power move. Why? Because it gives you access to all of your power.

You have so much potential within, and the School of Self-Image is designed to bring it all out.

In case you’ve never actually read what the School of Self-Image includes, take a look.

You can unlock all of this power today for just $97.

THE MONTHLY CLASS: Each month, we release a new class covering topics from money and time management to self-confidence, style, and decluttering. You'll learn how to elevate every area of your life, one self-image upgrade at a time.

SELF-IMAGE COACHING: You'll have 3 opportunities every month to get your questions answered, watch women experience breakthroughs in real-time, and even get coached by me and my certified coach & Community Manager, Laura.

ACCESS THE COMPLETE COLLECTION & PRIVATE MEMBERS-ONLY PODCAST: Access over 100+ past classes, complete with transcripts, downloadable audios, and beautiful workbooks. Plus, listen to the audio of every class, Q&A, and coaching session on the go with our private podcast.

EXCLUSIVE PROGRAM – THE SELF-IMAGE METHOD: The Self-Image Method is the official School of Self-Image approach to achieving any transformation you desire by changing how you see yourself. Self-Image is the key to getting anything you want, and the Self-Image Method is the “how” behind the hype.

EXCLUSIVE PROGRAM – THE DREAM ATELIER: The Dream Atelier is designed to help you name, claim, and create your extraordinary goal 30 days at a time. Think of this like self-image meets productivity. It’s an approach to getting stuff done that will not only change your life, it will also be the catalyst for helping you check off everything on your bucket list.

EXCLUSIVE PROGRAM - THE ART OF DISCIPLINE: If you’ve ever wanted to take action on your dreams so badly but for some reason, you just couldn’t get yourself to do it, The Art of Discipline is for you. It’s a 60-minute masterclass that will help you overcome the hurdles of procrastination and self-sabotage. It includes tools for reframing your relationship with discipline, as well as strategies for making yourself proud by following through on your commitments.

EXCLUSIVE RESOURCE - THE DAILY 3 JOURNAL: The Daily 3 Journal is the ultimate resource for the self-defined woman. It features an elegant approach to taking tiny daily actions that move you toward your Extraordinary Goals. Everything in the School of Self-Image comes together with the journal and your daily 3 practice, as you edit and refine your mindset, style, and surroundings to match the woman you’re becoming.

And when you go all-in and choose the Annual Membership, we’ll show up even BIGGER for you.

Join the School of Self-Image with an Annual Membership and you’ll unlock instant access to all of this additional value:

PREMIUM COURSE - THE SLIM SELF-IMAGE: A brand new 8-week course all about creating a slim mindset. Say goodbye to your diet mentality of the past and experience permanent weight loss by transforming your self-image.

PREMIUM COURSE - CHARM THE ROOM: My community-favorite program on how to be captivating and confident in any setting. Charm the Room is perfect for women who are ready to show up for more authentic connections and lasting relationships by bringing out the inner magnetism that lives within all of us.

PREMIUM COURSE - THE WEALTHY WOMAN: Discover how to let go of all the “not enough-ness” you feel about money, get comfortable with creating wealth, and make the shift to living with abundance. The Wealthy Woman is made for women who are ready to stop hiding from their finances and who want to show up as the wealthy woman they are capable of being.

MONTHLY VIP COCKTAIL PARTIES: For behind-the-scenes and after-hours conversations about creating a life on your own terms, show up for these no-holds-barred conversations with me and fabulous women from around the world.

Plus as an Annual Member, you get 12 months of membership for the price of 10!

With every tool you need to have anything you want, the only question is how will you use the School of Self-Image to become the woman who has it all?

Learn More & Become a MemberHow to Chill OutI think we could all use a little more calm. Whether you’re high-strung, worry often, or can never quite find yourself living in the present moment, today’s episode will bring you so much relief. Inspired by my dad, here’s to level-headed. Here’s to being laid back. Here’s to love.

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Have you ever felt stuck, Tom?

Back in 2020, that’s exactly how I felt. In my business, my life, and my vision for the future.

Growing up in the South, I learned the importance of slowing down and taking time to “think on” your life.

I had reached that point… but I couldn’t get into a truly reflective mindset at home.

I needed to get away from my day-to-day environment. So I jumped on a plane and headed to California.

What was on the itinerary? Thinking time.

I made some HUGE decisions on that trip - decisions that changed the trajectory of my life.

“Think trips” - or reflective getaways - allow you to get back to your truth, your desires, and your life in a way that feels restorative, so you have the clarity and energy to take action.

It could be a day at a beautiful park or a weekend at your favorite local hotel.

Or maybe it’s a magical 2.5 days in New Orleans with yours truly. At SOSI South, this November, I’ll be showing you how to elevate every part of your life through the art of charm - with plenty of opportunities to reflect along the way. Don’t miss out. We still have a few tickets left, so reserve yours today.

Whatever destination you choose, there is only one requirement. You must actually get away. That means leaving your familiar surroundings behind and heading somewhere different and inspiring.

Welcome to this edition of The Edit. It’s the Getaway issue. Let’s go!

Get My Ticket

| Change your environment to change your thoughts. |

| We often blame our inability to change on willpower. We put ourselves down for lacking the inner strength that other people have.But believe me, Tom, you’re not lacking anything. You just need to change your environment. And here’s why:BIG changes require BIG mindset shifts. From insecure to confident.From scarcity to abundance. From uninspired to ultra-creative.And when you wake up in the same place, day after day, you trigger the same thoughts and behaviors over and over again, making those mindset shifts nearly impossible. We are biologically wired to adapt to our environments, so when you change your surroundings, your thoughts will naturally follow suit.Putting yourself in a new, elevated setting, even for a short time, jolts your mind out of its familiar patterns, allowing it to see and embrace exciting new possibilities.For instance, let’s go back to that impromptu trip to California in 2020. If I hadn’t changed up my environment, I know my mind never would have dreamed up the School of Self-Image. And our paths would likely never have crossed, Tom! So don’t underestimate the power of a reflective getaway. Who knows what extraordinary life changes and connections yours will inspire? |

Life-Changing Getawayswith Jennifer Klatt“I saw this from a friend today: A bottle of water at Costco is $0.25. The same bottle in a good restaurant or hotel is $3. The bottle and the brand are the same. The only difference is the place.

Such a great analogy, and reminds me of Tonya’s lesson about changing your environment. I found Tonya in 2020, during a low point in my life, and the overall result has been truly life-changing.

I signed up for SOSI South because I have experienced big shifts after attending the previous two SOSI Live events. At SOSI Beach, I acknowledged a deeply buried dream to live in a condo in a city, which I was able to make a reality a few months later.

At SOSI Desert, the visualization exercise motivated me to tackle my next extraordinary goal of weight loss. And being in a room with so many like-minded women is an incredible experience!”

| Escape In Style |

| Whether you’re joining me in New Orleans in November, or heading elsewhere for your reflective getaway, we could all use a little Southern charm in our lives. And nothing captures the beauty of Southern charm quite like a sundress. Sometimes, a traditional sundress feels too “sweet” for my taste. Here’s a modern twist on one that I think is chic without losing its charm. |

Get The Dress HereHow to Take Time to “Think On” Your LifeI am a BIG believer in stepping away from your life to think on your life.

But once you’ve made the reservations and cleared your calendar, then what? To get the most out of your reflective getaway, you must go in with a clear plan.

You have to know what you want to accomplish, for example, and set up your environment for success.

Does your space have the right lighting? Do you need a particular kind of music for inspiration? In this episode, we’ll dive into all the details.

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Listen to the Full Episode:Tonya Leigh has set a goal to assist 5,000 women in creating their "after" and documenting the process. She considers the reviews left by listeners on iTunes as a form of "after" because they share how the podcast has impacted their lives. The host expresses gratitude towards the listeners who have left a review and encourages others who have benefited from the podcast to do the same.In this episode, the concept of be actions versus outcome actions is discussed in detail. Tonya explains that most people struggle to achieve their goals because they focus solely on the outcome they want, rather than the person they need to become to achieve that goal. She emphasizes the importance of focusing on one's identity or "being" rather than just the outcome or "getting." The host gives examples from her own life, such as struggling with weight loss and money, where she would take outcome actions such as going on a diet or trying to work out, but would ultimately sabotage herself and go back to her old state of being. She realized she needed to focus on becoming the person she wanted to become, rather than just achieving the outcome. By focusing on 'be actions', the outcome will become effortless, and once the outcome is achieved, it will be easier to sustain because the person's identity has already changed to match what they want.By focusing on creating small wins and little bits of evidence every day that she is a fit woman, the host is able to shift her focus from the outcome to her self-image. She creates new neural pathways that confirm her new identity, and as a result, her outcomes change. Tonya emphasizes that changing one's identity is the key to achieving desired outcomes, not the other way around.What You Will Discover with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: 00:02:25 Be actions vs. outcome actions * 00:05:02 Overcoming limiting beliefs * 00:08:45 Changing identity for effortless outcome QuotesConnect with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: Join Now! https://schoolofselfimage.com/join* * *FREE Download: https://schoolofselfimage.com/self-image-manifesto/* * Join us at SOSI South!: *http://schoolofselfimage.com/south * Website: https://schoolofselfimage.com * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tonyaleigh * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TonyaLeighOfficial * TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thetonyaleigh * YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TonyaLeighOfficial DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTDo you struggle with reaching your goals or consistency in the actions that you take? Listen, I get it. And it wasn't until I learned what I'm about to share with you in this podcast that things began to shift for me. I was able to be consistent and therefore achieve my goals. So today we're going to be talking about outcome actions versus be actions. Let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, Master Life Coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello, my gorgeous friends. And a big shout out to Nancy. Nancy is the mom of my favorite waiter here in Charlotte at one of my favorite restaurants here in Charlotte called O-Ku. His name is Ryan. And when I first moved here, I went to O-ku. It's one of the first restaurants I went to actually. And we started talking and he learned about my podcast. And so when I went in the other day, he told me that his mom, Nancy, and her friends are now listening to the podcast. So I just want to say, hi Nancy, and thank you for raising such an incredible, incredible son.

I also want to say thank you to the hundreds and hundreds of people who have taken time out of their day to write a review for this podcast. My big goal, my extraordinary goal is to collect 5,000 after stories. I want to help 5,000 women create their after, and I want to document the process. And in a way, the reviews that are left on the podcast feel like afters to me because so many of you share how the podcast has impacted your life. And so I just wanted to say thank you so much. I understand that that time is precious, and so the fact that you took your precious time to leave a review means so much. And hey, listen, if you have benefited from this podcast, if you love it, if you look forward to it, I would really appreciate it if you would leave a review on iTunes. It means a lot.

So today we are going to dive into a concept of be actions versus outcome actions. This is a lot of the work that we do within the School of Self-Image. And I've never taught the concept in this way, but if you are in the membership, you know that we talk about taking action to create evidence for who you want to be. We create our extraordinary goal, which is the outcome that we want, but then we look at who do we need to become to achieve that goal, to achieve that outcome, and then we focus our daily practice on being that woman now. Outcomes are about what you get. Your being is about who you are. It's your identity. And the reason why the majority of people struggle in achieving their goals is because they are taking action for an outcome versus taking action for a new state of being.

Now, let me explain to you what I mean because this is so important. And I usually talk in either weight or money because these are the two areas that I have personally struggled at. And so I'm going to give you some examples of what this has looked like in my own life. So years ago when I struggled with my weight, I would take a lot of outcome action. I would go on the diet, I would try really hard to work out. And inevitably what would end up happening is I would sabotage myself. I would give up and I would go back to my old state of being. But in my mind at the time, I thought if I could just lose the weight, then I can be that person at the end. And this is why I struggled, because I needed to be that person now.

The same with money, and I know this affects a lot of people. It's like, "Okay, I'm going to pay down my debt. I'm going to make more money, I'm going to grow my wealth," whatever it is for you. "And when I finally do that, then I will feel abundant, then I will be a wealthy person." And so your identity is conflicting with what you want. And so you take a lot of action, but then all of a sudden you notice, "Ugh, I'm hitting upper limits. I'm overspending. I'm not putting myself out there so I can earn more" and you come back to your baseline identity.

So I want to give you all the hack to help you overcome this pattern that holds you back. And the hack is you need to take action to confirm a new state of being. So have the outcome that you want, state it. Look at it often. But every day your practice is to take be actions, actions to confirm a new state of being, because you can take an action to lose weight or you can take an action to confirm that you're a healthy person. Now, what happens if you're taking an action to lose weight and you're not seeing immediate results and you're not getting the outcome that you want fast enough? What inevitably happens? You say, "Why bother? This is too hard. It's not worth it."

On the flip side, however, if you are taking action to confirm, "This is who I am declaring myself to be. This is who I'm becoming," and you make that the focus of your actions, then you are changing your identity. And we know if you've listened to this podcast for any amount of time that you will always work to prove your identity true. You will always work to prove your self-image true. Let me give you an example from my personal life. One of the outcomes that I am currently working on is I want to have a very fit body. As I am approaching 50, I am having this deep desire to take better care of myself than I've ever, ever done. And some people would look at me and think, "Oh, well, you look fit." I just know I could be way fitter. So that is the outcome I want. I want to have a fit and healthy body.

Now, right now, I see myself as healthy, but I don't see myself as fit. So what a lot of people will do, they're like, "Okay, I want to have a fit body. I want to get toned." And so they head to the gym and they pump weights. But over time it becomes harder and harder to keep up the motivation. Motivation requires constant effort. And we can only effort our way so much until our subconscious kicks in and we go back to our identity. This is where be actions come in. Be actions are actions that you are taking to provide evidence for a new identity. So when I think about myself having a fit body, then who is she? How does she identify? What is her self-image? And she is a fit woman.

And so when I start to focus on, "I want to create small wins," a little bit of evidence every single day that I am a fit woman, the focus comes off of the outcome and onto my self-image. And the more I do that, I am confirming a completely new identity with every pushup that I do, with every sprint that I do, with every sit up that I do, and doing it for the purpose of providing evidence for a new identity. That is exactly what I'm doing. I am creating new neural pathways that says, "This is who you are."

And then what I know happens is that when you change your identity, you change your outcomes as a result, not the other way around. A lot of you all are trying to change your outcome to then have a new identity, but in my process, we do it the opposite. We focus on changing our identity so that the outcome literally becomes effortless. It becomes like brushing your teeth. It's just who you are and what you do.

I think about my man, Fonz. His identity is that of an athlete and he's in his 50s. But because that is his identity, he trains like an athlete. He goes out there on the court and plays basketball like an athlete. And he's constantly proving to himself, "This is who I am." And it doesn't require effort. He's not like, "Ugh, I got to go to the gym today and train. Ugh, I got to go play a game." It's not heart, it's just what he does because that is who he is.

So no matter what you want, whether you want to meet the love of your life, no matter if you want to grow your business, get healthy, become more organized, the goal is to decide on the person you need to be and then take your action to constantly prove to yourself, "This is who I'm becoming." And then the outcome will literally be effortless. And not only that, once you achieve the outcome, it won't be hard to sustain, which is why often happens. Like we reach a goal and then we're like, "Oh my God, how am I going to keep this up? This is too hard." And it's because you never changed your identity to match what you want.

And so focus on be actions. Yes, have those extraordinary goals. I love an extraordinary goal, but I love them because they inform who you need to become. They are a guide for your evolution. So once you decide, "This is what I want for myself and for my life," then you have to decide, "Who do I need to be to create that?" And then every day, focus your actions on being that person. Gather those small wins to provide evidence of "This is who I am" and you will amaze yourself with what you're able to accomplish.

Have a beautiful, beautiful week, my friends. I cannot wait to see you in the next episode. Cheers.

Hey, have you grabbed your free copy of the School of Self-Image Manifesto? If not, what in the world? Head over to schoolofselfimage.com/manifesto and get a copy that teaches you how to think and show up in the areas of mindset, style, and surroundings so that you can transform your self-image.

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Listen to the Full Episode:In this episode of the School of Self-Image podcast, Tonya Leigh discusses the "dos and don'ts" of living a charmed life, inspired by a quote from Neil Donald Walsh. She encourages listeners to be the source of charm in the lives of others and to make everyone they touch feel lucky for crossing paths with them. Tanya also shares some anecdotes from her personal life, including hosting family and training for her first pickleball tournament. Finally, she reminds listeners that it's the little things in everyday life that can bring the most joy.

What You Will Discover with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: 00:03:35 Living a charmed life * 00:04:33 The meaning of 'charm' * 00:06:20 SOSI South * 00:13:01 Being a Giver, not a taker * 00:16:51 Impress yourself * 00:21:13 Stop focusing on the unattractive * 00:25:03 Don't sweat the small stuff * 00:29:29 Slowing down for a charmed life QuotesConnect with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: Join Now! https://schoolofselfimage.com/join* * *FREE Download: https://schoolofselfimage.com/self-image-manifesto/* * Join us at SOSI South!: *http://schoolofselfimage.com/south * Website: https://schoolofselfimage.com * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tonyaleigh * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TonyaLeighOfficial * TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thetonyaleigh * YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TonyaLeighOfficial DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTNeale Donald Walsch wrote, "You can live a charmed life by causing others to live a charmed life. That is, be the source of charm, of charming moments and experiences, in the life of another. Be everyone else's Lucky Charm! Make all who you touch today feel lucky that you crossed their path. Do this for a week and watch things change. Do it for a month and you'll be a different person." In this episode of the podcast, we are talking about the dos and don'ts of a charmed life. Let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach Tonya Leigh.

Hello, my beautiful friends. Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. My parents just left yesterday. They were here for the weekend to celebrate Mother's Day, and I always love spending time with them. And then one of Fonz's good friends from LA came in last night and he's going to be here for a few days. We've had a full house, which I love. It's so much fun. Fonz and I are getting ready to play in our very first pickleball tournament, and he has taken this very seriously. He is demanding that I train every single morning. He's like, "Let's get up. Let's stretch. Let's do some cardio." I just find it so amusing. I'm like, "Babe, it's pickleball. We're going to be just fine."

But we're both competitive. We both want to win. I will definitely let you know how that goes. We play this coming weekend. It'll be our first tournament. Other than that, I've just been enjoying the little things. Truly, it's the little things in my everyday life that delights me greatly. Walking around Charlotte this time of the year and seeing these beautiful trees, I have no words. My family, and probably you are sick of hearing me talk about the trees, but they're just so stunningly intoxicating and beautiful and all different types. I can't even describe it. You have to come just to see the trees.

It's the blue skies and the song that I hear and the smile of my family and friends. It's like these little things that we often overlook, but make life so beautiful, so delightful. And yet often in our attempt to go after extraordinary things, which you also know I love to do, we can forget to look around at the extraordinary things in the ordinary. And not only that, we can begin to look at the things that take us away from a charmed life. What is a charmed life? I've been thinking about this topic a lot. I've been studying it. I've been going through my own life history and excavating the lessons that have led me to live what many people call a charmed life.

If you look up what the definition is, it means a life protected by difficulties. Other definitions say a life that seems to have a magical lucky quality. Now, for the record, I don't believe in a life without difficulty. I believe we need difficulties to give us contrast, to teach us lessons, to guide us, to strengthen us. When I think about my life, I don't think of it as, oh, I've lived a life without difficulty. Not at all. I encounter difficulties all of the time, and yet I still feel like I live a charmed life. Why is this even important? Why would you even want to live a charmed life? Well, maybe you don't, but I find that the majority of people do.

We want to transcend the ordinary and the mundane. We want to feel alive. We want to feel magic. We want to feel the expansion of what can be. And to me, that's what charm is. Charm means the power of giving delight or arousing admiration to achieve something as if by magic. When I think of being in alignment, when I think of being in flow, when I think of attracting things into my life, there is a charming quality to it. There is this effortlessness of showing up in the fullest expression of you and having that come back to you because the world will always mirror back to you your self-image, how you see yourself, your energy, your state of being.

That's just how it works. As I said, I've been studying this a lot because I am devoting the entire theme of SOSI South, which is our annual event that we're going to be hosting this year in New Orleans. We're talking about charm, and I've realized it comes down to three things that you need to learn how to charm in order to live a charming life. We're going to be diving deep into these at this event. We're going to be doing exercises. I want every participant that comes to leave changed in the deepest way and they take that magic back home with them.

You're going to learn how to use charm to better the relationship with yourself, to create beautiful and healthy relationships with others, to maybe grow your business, to grow your wealth, to expand your joy, to come alive. If you want to dive into this topic deeper with me in person with the most extraordinary group of charming women that you'll ever meet, come join us at SOSI South. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/south. But this isn't just a weekend conference. This is a luxury retreat where we learn during the day and then we practice at night and we have parties and dinners.

It's just one of the most incredible events that you could attend. I've had women tell me many times, they've been to many events, they've never been to one like this. We would love to have you. Go check it out, schoolofselfimage.com/south, and get your ticket. They're almost gone. When it comes to charm, there are three ways that I want you to think about this, three things you need to learn to charm in order to live a magical life. The first is you need to learn to charm yourself. That's the most important because you're with you all of the time. Do you give yourself great delight?

Do you enjoy your own company? Because if you don't master that, you're not going to be able to master the next two. That's the foundation. The second thing that you need to learn to charm is others. Like it or not, we're around people all of the time, and the way you interact with them will either bring you great joy and great delight or great misery and great pain. I have an entire program within the School of Self-Image membership for VIP members called Charm the Room. In this program, I shared the exact principles that I used to go from being awkward and anxious and literally just afraid of people in social situations.

I was weird. I was the kind of person that would run to the bathroom and hang out there because I just didn't know how to be with other people. It was like a two layered process for me. It was learning how to charm myself, but also in doing that, learning how to be with other people and engage. And now you can put me around anyone and I feel totally at home, totally comfortable. I've had people tell me, "oh my God, you're so great to talk with. I feel like I can share anything with you. You're so engaging." It really just boils down to learning the art of charm. Listen, if y'all could have seen me before, you'd realize anybody can learn this.

It's not rocket science. It is about emotional intelligence. It is about empathy. It is about caring for other people, and that's something that we can all learn and practice 100%. The third thing that you need to learn to charm if you want to live a charmed life is charming life itself. And to me, this is how you interact with day-to-day happenings when things don't go your way, when you're annoyed, when you are not getting there fast enough. How do you interact with life itself? When people say to me, "Tonya, you live such a charmed life," what they don't see is the internal perspective that I have shifted to that allows for you to think such a thing, because I didn't grow up in privilege.

I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I've had to work very hard and diligently to be the woman I am today and to create the life that I am currently living. I think sometimes people think, oh, a charmed life is a rich life. And yeah, it is, but I'm not talking about rich in money. I have friends. I have people I know that have way more money than me, who live in bigger houses than I live in, who drive better cars, who I don't feel like have a charmed life the way I do because it's an internal thing. It's literally seeing the world through rose colored glasses. Some people will poo-poo that comment and they're like, "Oh, you need to see reality."

But what is reality, my friends? Are you seeing reality? Because the way I look at it, everything is possible out there for you to see. What are you plugging into? I just love to plug into the things that give me power, that give me strength, that give me optimism, that give me excitement and joy and love and unplug from the things that don't. Yeah, maybe I am looking at the world through rose colored glasses, but it's better than looking at the world through the dark ones. I thought it would be fun to give you some dos and don'ts of a charmed life. Years ago I wrote an article and let's see, the name of it is 50 Ways to Live A Charmed Life.

I've been talking about this for a long time, but today, I just want to give you some updated tips on the dos and don'ts of living a charmed life. If you want to live a charmed life, do use your China. Don't save it for the silver anniversary. Don't save it for the special occasion. Use it often. If you want to live a charmed life, you don't save your best for someday when. You use your best every single day. I want you to think about what that tells yourself and what that tells the universe. When I look at this through the self-image lens, using your best often, maybe even daily, comes from an abundant mindset.

Because what I have found is a lot of people don't use their best because they're in such lack and scarcity and they're afraid, "Oh, if I use it, I might mess it up, so I'm going to save it." There's so much lack and scarcity in that. By using your best every single day, you're telling yourself that you are an abundant woman, that every day is the special occasion that you deserve to experience the best that you can offer yourself. And that is a powerful way to see yourself. Now, if we want to think about a charming life, using your best is telling life, "Hey, I appreciate my best. I'm going to use it. You can trust me with more."

Living a charmed life is going to ask that you use your best, you use your China, not tomorrow, but today. The second do of a charmed life is to give without expectations. You can wake up every morning asking the universe, "What are you going to do for me today? What are you going to give me today?" Or you can wake up and you can say, "What can I give today? How can I make the world a better place today? What can I offer? How can I serve someone?" Now, I just want you to think about those two different approaches and which one do you think is going to lead to a charmed life. This is how we create everyday magic.

I love what my friend Joe Polish says. He says, life gives to the giver and takes from the taker. I love to give without expectations. Because a lot of times when we do give, it's because we are wanting something in return. It can be used as a manipulative tool. I'm going to give you something, but you better give something in return. I think that just sets you up to not enjoy the giving process. It sets you up to be disappointed. I love to give on purpose. I love to give without expecting anything in return. Doing that has allowed me to enjoy being generous. It's allowed me to enjoy serving and trusting the process.

Because life is like a boomerang. Whatever you're throwing out is coming back. But a lot of times we're throwing things out in a certain way, and we think that the way we throw it out is the way it's going to come back. We're looking in that direction hoping it's going to come from that source. I don't think of it that way, even in my business. I just know if I show up and I offer value and I over-deliver and I really care about my clients and I serve and I look for how I can make it better, if I look how I can serve better, I trust that that will come back. I don't know how. I don't expect it to come from the person maybe I'm giving it to.

I just trust in the laws of the universe. I can just show up and give and enjoy the delights of giving and trust that it's going to come back in some way, at some point. Don't know when, don't know how, don't know where, but it always has. Sometimes I've been shocked as to how it comes back. But even expecting it to come back is an expectation, and often that can lead to disappointment, especially if it's not coming back when you think it should or how it should. I just love giving and just dropping the expectation and giving just because it fills good to give. It feels good to be of service. It feels good to be generous.

It feels good to offer when you are doing it in truth and integrity, not you're doing it because you think you should or it's an obligation. That's not living a charmed life, but when you really want to be generous, you give without expectations. The third do of living a charmed life is do wear the dress, and not just on the weekends, but every day. Now, I say wear the dress, whatever your version of the dress is. What I mean by this is get dressed. You will find me dressed up almost every single day. Why? Because I feel good. I love the way I feel when I am dressed up. And when I feel good, I have that magnetic power.

And that's the way it works. You're attracting who you are, so I'm feeling good. I'm attracting more things to feel good about. It's hard to attract your dream life when you're not dressing for it. But of course, sometimes people will say, "But what will people think if I'm over here dressed up every single day and nobody else is?" Who cares? You're doing this for you, not for them. Live to impress yourself. That's another way to live a charmed life. But do wear the dress. The other do of living a charmed life is do make plans. One of the most charming women that I knew when I worked as a nurse was named Carolyn.

I've talked about Carolyn before I think on the podcast, but Carolyn loved people and people loved Carolyn. Everybody wanted to be around her all of the time. She was so infectious. One of the things that Carolyn always had going on was plans. She always had something planned, whether it was a vacation with her family or dinners on the weekend. Carolyn always had something on the books, and it gave her an excitement. It gave her something to look forward to all of the time. I think about her a lot.

I know for me personally, and it's very rare that it happens now, but if I ever have a moment in my life where I don't have something on my calendar, I don't have a date planned with a girlfriend or a weekend away or a trip or something, life can start to feel very dull. It's very important that we plan our lives and we plan for things that are exciting, that we have something on the calendar that we are looking forward to. It doesn't have to be something expensive. It doesn't have to be something over the top. It could just be a weekly date with your spouse or with a girlfriend. It could be a weekend outing to one of your favorite spots, but it's something that you have to look forward to.

Because again, it just creates an excitement. It creates some magic in the ordinary when you have planned for something to look forward to. Another thing to do if you want to live a charmed life is to unplug from the unattractive. When I looked up the synonym of charm, it was unattractiveness. I think about that word unattractive, it's things that you are not attracted to or you don't want to be attracted to. The reason why a lot of you are suffering, the reason why a lot of you may feel like life is just mundane and heavy and ordinary is because that is the energy that you're plugging into every single day.

You're turning on the news, you're opening your phone, you're reading about the heavy and the unattractiveness of the world. And listen, I don't deny that it's there, but I want you to ask yourself this question, what good is it doing you and the world to constantly plug into it? Because my experience has been you're not out there advocating, you're not out there doing something about it. You're just feeling bad, which just adds to the bad feeling of the world. Anytime I plug into the news, even if it's for a few days, I start to feel icky. I start to feel heavy. I start to feel unattractive because my energy is repelling the things that I want to attract.

If you don't want to live a charmed life, do plug into the news, things on social media that's heavy and burdensome. But if you want to live a charmed life, unplug. You get to decide where you place your energy and your attention and your focus. It's all out there. Every day there are things to celebrate, there are beautiful things that are happening, and there are also terrible things that are happening. Which one do you want to plug into, and which one do you think is actually going to make the world a better place? If you want to live a charmed life, don't be a complainer. This is something we're actually working on within the membership this month.

We are working on being the complaint-free woman and members are having huge ahas and epiphanies around this topic. Here's what you need to know, charm and complaining don't go together. They repel each other. If you want to live a charmed life, don't complain or at least limit your complaining, because listen, we're all human and our brains love to complain. It's something fun for them to do, but it has a negative impact on our lives when we live in constant complaint mode. Because when you're complaining, you're not living in the magic of life, you're not living in the possibility, you're living in the I don't want this, this is wrong part of life.

Wherever you place your attention and your focus is going to be all that you experience and see. You can see how complaining does not lead to a charmed life. Whenever I encounter something that doesn't sit well with me that I don't like, I look at, what can I do about it? If I can't do anything about it, I need to accept it. But if I can do something about it, I need to do something about it instead of sitting around and complaining. I used to love to complain, though. I remember sitting around and complaining about how tired I felt. And in the meantime, I wasn't doing anything to get rid of my fatigue.

I was just sitting around thinking thoughts that made me even more tired instead of getting up and stretching, instead of going to the doctor and figuring out why am I so tired. I just sat there and complained about it. This is what we often do in our lives, and then we wonder why we aren't getting ahead, why we feel stuck. If you eliminated even 50% of your complaining, you're going to see your life get dramatically better. If you want to live a charmed life, don't be a complainer. If you want to live a charmed life, don't be so easily annoyed and so easily offended. This is a big one in this day and age.

It seems like everybody is so easily offended and everybody's walking on eggshells around everybody. There's no magic in that. One of the things that I am so grateful for, and I think I learned this from my father, he would always say, "Babe, just water off a duck's back." I watched my dad, it took so much to rattle him. It took so much to offend him. In fact, I don't know that I've ever seen my dad offended, because I think he understands that what's really offensive are the thoughts in our own heads. And that's not to say you should never be offended. I'm not saying that, but so easily offended by the smallest things.

I had an amazing lady email us recently, and she was so annoyed that we had sent her an email. It wasn't a bad email. It was an email inviting her to something, and she was so annoyed by it. I was so fascinated that she was so annoyed by an email. I thought to myself, if she's annoyed by an email, like what else is she annoyed by in her life? It would never occur to me to be annoyed by an email. Now, if I didn't want to receive it, I could kindly just reply and say, "Hey, listen, please take me off this list. Best of luck to you all." But to be annoyed, I just think there are much bigger... If I'm going to be annoyed about something, it's going to be something big.

I just don't want to waste my energy being annoyed at things that don't really matter. Now, at the end of the day, you get to decide what matters to you. If an email matters that much, okay, but I want you just to take a step back and ask yourself, how is this serving me? Is this helping me make my life better, my interaction with the world, with other people? Is this making my life better? Is this adding magic into my life, or is it am I caught in a cycle that I just keep repeating? Because at some point, you're going to have to transcend those old patterns and those old ways of thinking and showing up to get to the next version of you.

I've just noticed in my own life, the more I've worked on not being so easily offended and annoyed, my life just keeps getting better and better. Because trust me, there is always something to be annoyed about. There is something to be offended by if you're looking for that. But I'm always looking for, what's good about this? What can I learn from this? What's good about this person? How are they trying to do a good job? And because I'm looking for that, I'm seeing it everywhere, but a lot of times that's not what you're looking for. We always experience the world through our own filters, which is why living a charmed life is about replacing a lot of those filters.

Because if you believe that the world's out to get you, if you believe that people are taking advantage of you, if you think you can't trust people, if you think that it's going to take too long, if you think that you're not good enough, whatever it is, you're going to look for things to fuel those beliefs, so even an email can be triggering to you. And that's why I love doing this work around self-image, because when you begin to see yourself differently, you begin to have that reflected back to you in the world, and you begin to show up differently and you start creating very different results. If you want to live a charmed life, then watch your spelling.

Here's what I mean. Watch the words you speak. You think about spelling, it's like spell, to put a spell on yourself, to put a spell on other people. The words you speak are powerful. They carry a vibration. They carry an energy, and that energy is either expanding you or contracting you. Pay attention to the words you speak to yourself, to other people, and to the world at large. When you wake up in the morning, what are your first words to your day? Is it, "Ugh, another day," or is it, "Ah, another day, yes?" Even the way you speak words matter. Are you speaking possibility? Are you speaking love and optimism and joy and excitement, or are you speaking the opposite?

What kind of spell are you placing on yourself and your life through the words that you choose? It's important to think about. And then finally for this list, there's many other ways to live a charmed life, but for you today, if you want to live a charmed life, don't be in a hurry. When I think about someone living a charmed life, there's an ease. There's a slowness. There is a sauntering of a pace that says, everything I want is in this moment. A lot of times we're in such a hurry because we think over there is better than here. And because that is a belief that we often carry with us, even when we get there, we still think over there is better than here.

We're chasing this delusion. We're chasing this thing that can never be caught because it can't be experienced if you're carrying a belief that here's never enough. I get that sometimes you find yourself in a situation where you're like, "But Tonya, I got to change this situation fast, or I'm afraid of what's going to happen." I hear you, and you may feel the pressure of making that change. But I want you to ask yourself this, is putting the pressure on you speeding you up or slowing you down? Historically speaking from my own experience, the faster I try to go, the slower I become. Now, ironically, on the flip side, when I slow down is often when I speed up.

My grandmother when I was growing up would often say to me, "Hold your horses." It's a very Southern saying. But what she meant by that was slow down. Mind where you are. Take this in. Don't be in such a rush, because often that's when mistakes are made. And even now, Fonz will sometimes see me rushing through something and he says to me, You better slow down. Because if you don't, you're going to make a mistake," and then inevitably, I do. It's like, "Told you so." But even me now knowing this, I find myself wanting to hurry and finish or get to the next thing. Inevitably, when I do that, I don't have as good of a result as when I slow down.

The beauty of slowing down is not only do you often speed up because you're not putting that pressure on yourself and putting yourself in fight or flight where you can't think and be creative and problem solve, but the other beautiful thing about slowing down is that you begin to realize that life can only be as beautiful as you make this moment. The more you slow down and really take in the beauty of now, take in the possibility of now, take in what's right about now, you will notice that you begin to feel better. And as you begin to feel better, guess what? You show up in a more charming way. And as you show up in a more charming way, you begin to magnetize your future to you.

I wish for us all to have our version of a charmed life, whatever that looks like for you. If you want to dive deep into figuring that out and creating a plan to live your charmed life, come and join us at SOSI South. I promise you, you will not regret it. You can head to schoolofselfimage.com/south. Read all about it. I hope to see you there, and I certainly hope to see you on the next episode. Have a beautiful week, everyone. Cheers. Cheers.

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Ten years ago, I checked into a little apartment in Montmartre in Paris.

Now here’s the crazy part.

I was all by myself.

It felt so strange. There was no one asking me for anything, debating about where to eat, or wondering what we were going to do.

It was the ultimate freedom… and the ultimate test.

Could I navigate a foreign city?

Could I enjoy my own company?

Could I be okay on my own?

That’s the thing. Solo travel is about SO much more than a trip.

It’s an adventure of learning to trust, love, and flourish with only yourself to rely on.

Whether you’re a seasoned solo traveler or you’ve never gone anywhere by yourself, there is always more to discover.

In this issue of The Edit - The Solo Issue - we will explore the countless doors solo travel can unlock, including the door to a charmed life.

I will be sharing all my secrets for designing a charmed life beyond your current imagination - LIVE and in-person - this November at SOSI South in New Orleans.

Over 2 ½ captivating days, I will show you how to master the power of charm and use it to uplevel every part of your life. Trust me. It’s going to be the solo adventure of a lifetime.

Tickets are going FAST, so click the link to see all the details and secure your spot.

Love,

Solo travel is a tool to cultivate your self-confidence.Let’s back it up to the moment I checked into that little apartment in Montmartre.

I was definitely intimidated by being alone in a foreign country alone.

I was worried about navigating a city where I didn’t speak the language…

But I also didn’t want any what-ifs or regrets at the end of my life. I had to dive in.

Wondering how it all turned out? Let me tell you, my friend. That solo Parisian adventure made my confidence soar. By the inspiration alone, I launched a new business, changed my mindset around health & wellness, and made friends I still have to this day.

When you realize you can figure out the Metro system or enjoy new foods you can’t even pronounce, something incredible happens.

You begin to trust in your ability to do things much greater. Your expanded self-image follows you back home and shows up in the most transformative ways.

If you are still on the fence about attending SOSI South, ask yourself: What would your 90-year-old self want you to do?

I know what mine would reply.

Grand Solo Adventures, Past & Futurewith Leesa Mosed Ferrell“I was on vacation and couldn’t sleep one night, so I started scrolling for all things French-inspired. I came across Tonya, immediately signed up to work with her, and dove right in. I loved it, and I’ve been transforming from her materials ever since.

Tonya’s message fit with the journey that had started. I learned that I am the author of my life and get to create my own story. I wanted what Tonya was having. I also wanted to be able to have an impact on women by working with them 1:1.

Tonya models and teaches women to live in the world of possibilities through her program. She inspired me to get my coaching certification, which I completed three years ago.

SOSI Beach (a past live event Tonya hosted in Miami) was the first time I traveled completely on my own. I have always traveled as part of a pack. I was nervous. Until this trip, I had never even driven and parked at the airport by myself! I have always hired a taxi or asked someone to drop me off.

Just getting to the destination was so empowering and my first step into solo travel (another SOSI member, Alessia T is my coaching bff, and she coached me and gave me tips).

At SOSI Beach, I decided I wanted to be a woman who works out and gets regular massages. A week after I returned, I signed up for both and have been going regularly ever since.

Just getting to the destination was so empowering and my first step into solo travel (another SOSI member, Alessia T is my coaching bff, and she coached me and gave me tips).

At SOSI Beach, I decided I wanted to be a woman who works out and gets regular massages. A week after I returned, I signed up for both and have been going regularly ever since.

I had so much fun at SOSI Beach and made so many new friends that I signed up for SOSI Desert (Tonya’s 2nd live event) as soon as it was announced. SOSI Desert was like reuniting with old friends and making new ones.

Signing up for SOSI South was a no-brainer for me. Being around Tonya and her team is a treat. The women that are attracted to her programs are THE BEST.

I know, from experience, that SOSI South will be a high-end experience where more great memories will be made. Not to mention the personal insights. I always come back from Tonya’s events with a better version of myself.”

An Elegant Essential for Solo TravelI believe in chic uniforms - those easy outfits you can just throw on and instantly feel great. The same goes for luggage. Every charming woman needs a chic travel bag in her arsenal - one that makes her feel amazing, no matter what she is wearing.

THIS durable weekend bag is just that bag. I can always count on it to make me feel polished, put together, and ready for adventure.

Snag Your Bag HereThe Power of Solo Travel with AlessiaIn this week’s podcast, for the first time EVER, I have a co-host!

I am so excited for you all to meet Alessia, one of my longest-running coaching clients. She knows all about the power of solo travel because she has an entire business devoted to it. The juicy tips she shares here are GOLD, so do not miss this episode.

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Last year during a visit to my home state of North Carolina, I had a shocking revelation.

When it was time to leave, I just... couldn't.

A deep longing for the South took hold of me.

Its charm had once again enchanted me.

Sweet tea. Oak trees. Grits and collard greens. Dressing up for Sunday brunch. The "yes ma’ams" and "no sirs."

This came as a BIG surprise. When I left the South more than ten years ago, I was sure I’d never move back.

I was so ready to experience a new culture, geography, and way of life (and let me tell you… I have lived.)

I’m conversational in intimacy and wealth.

And I used to speak overwhelm really well - but I haven’t practiced it in so long, I’ve mostly forgotten how.

Did you know emotions are like languages?

The more you practice them, the more fluent you become… the more they become part of your identity, your character, your way of life.

Emotional fluency is the ability to easily and effortlessly generate any emotion you desire.

In this edition of The Edit - The Eloquent Issue - we’re going to practice some new languages.

Which emotion would you like to speak fluently? Be sure to tell me over on Instagram @tonyaleigh

But it turns out that the charm of the South had never left me, and now it is calling me back home. That charm is the inspiration for our upcoming live event - SOSI South, in none other than one of the most charming southern cities in the country, New Orleans, Louisiana.

Our theme is The Charmed Life. It’s the ultimate invitation to “I’ll have what she’s having.” Inner charm is where the true magic resides.

Come November, in the luxurious setting of a historic hotel, just steps away from the French Quarter, I’ll be showing our amazing attendees exactly how to bring more charm into your life.

More charm means more romantic dates, more wealth at your disposal, or anything else your heart desires.

Our guests will walk away from this magical 2.5 day experience with all the knowledge they need to turn charm into their secret ingredient for an extraordinary life.

Would you like an invitation?

Our Diamond members - those who have been with us for at least 2 years in the School of Self-Image - were offered early access, and the rest of our members were invited today.

If there are any tickets left once they’ve all RSVP’d, we’ll send you an invite. Be sure to watch your inbox over the next few days.

Love,

P.S. Welcome to The Charm Issue. It’s truly the key to turning your desires into reality with style and grace.

Charm is an attitude.Growing up in the deep South, I was steeped in the “Emily Post” type of charm: manners, kindness, and pleasantries, but I’ve come to discover that those are only the most surface-level expressions of charm.

Real charm is a radiant presence, a head-turning confidence, and a playful curiosity that holds a room and makes people wonder, Who in the world is that?

It’s mysterious and magnetic, and here’s the best part: anyone can learn to be charming. Charm resides within all of us. It’s just a matter of connecting with yours.

The Life-Changing Power of Southern Charmwith Darnel Sheard Wenger“I was born and raised in Florida and my family is from southern Georgia. One thing I learned is that no matter what, always be a lady with style and class. This embodies SOSI perfectly.

I’ve been working with Tonya since French Kiss life. Since we started working together, I’ve left an unhealthy relationship, lost about 20 pounds, and am almost debt-free. I’ve learned who I am as a woman, I’ve learned to love myself and to heal my heart.

I started writing a book and have entered a poem in a national contest. I began my journey to find a happy, fulfilling, and healthy relationship. I’ve made wonderful progress.

I’ve had the privilege to participate in the live events which are life-changing. So when SOSI South presented itself I was very excited at the opportunity. The South holds a charm all its own. To combine that with the amazing women of SOSI and the invaluable knowledge and experiences of the live event, it’s a given that I have to be included in the fun.”

Immerse Yourself in an Education on CharmYou cannot have charm without connection. A charming woman walks into a room of strangers with confidence and ease. She attracts people and opportunities like moths to a flame.

To be charming, you must learn how to powerfully connect with others, feel confident no matter who’s in the room, and captivate your audience of one or many.

Lessons I Learned from Being Raised in the SouthI grew up in a trailer in a tiny, one-stoplight town in North Carolina but that did not stop me from absorbing the best of Southern charm.

Charm is not about wealth or status (though you can certainly use it to attract those things). Charm begins with kindness, gratitude, humility, and all the gracious inner qualities my mother instilled in me.

In this week’s podcast, I’ll talk about the lessons I learned from my Southern childhood, which have stuck with me through the years, and helped me build the life and business of my dreams.

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Listen to the Full Episode:In this episode of the School of Self-Image podcast, host Tonya Leigh talks about the importance of setting aside time to think about your life. She emphasizes that planning your life on purpose is necessary in order to bear the fruits of a well-planned life. Tonya encourages listeners to take time to think about their life direction and make plans to change it if necessary. She reflects on the impact of COVID on the world's pace and how it forced people to slow down and be with their own thoughts, which can be scary at times. The episode ends with an invitation for listeners to take time to reflect on their life and make it a priority.What You Will Discover with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: 0:02:05 Time to think during COVID * 0:07:11 Deep thinking for a better life * 0:11:00 Creativity and fulfillment * 0:14:01 Creating thinking time QuotesConnect with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: Join Now! https://schoolofselfimage.com/join* * *FREE Download: https://schoolofselfimage.com/self-image-manifesto/* * *Give yourself the Royal Treatment! Enroll now here: http://schoolofselfimage.com/royal/* * Website: *https://schoolofselfimage.com * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tonyaleigh * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TonyaLeighOfficial * TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thetonyaleigh * YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TonyaLeighOfficial DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTWhen was the last time you set aside time to think on your life, to ask the juicy questions, to listen for guidance, to make really great plans? If you are feeling stuck or you feel like your life is not heading in the right direction, then it's important that you take time to think on your life, and that's what this episode is all about. So let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello, my beautiful friends. How are you feeling? I am feeling really relaxed. I just spent the last hour journaling about my life. I've been spending time thinking on my life, which is very important for us all to do. I remember when I was a little girl, my grandmother would tell me, "You got to take time to plan your garden, to bear the fruits of it." And I thought about how that applies to our life. You need to take time to plan your life on purpose in order to bear the fruits of a well-planned life. And yet so many people are going so fast, and they're going so fast in a direction they don't even want to be going in. But they tell themselves that when they have more time, when things slow down, then they'll take the time to figure out their life.

But we can see that's just craziness, and yet we've all done it to ourselves. It feels like there is no other option but to keep going. And I think this is why COVID was such a big reset for the world, is because during that time, we were forced to literally slow down. People couldn't go to work, people couldn't go to church, people couldn't go to events. People were forced to be at home by themselves with their own brain, which if you haven't done that in a while, it can be scary what's in there. But this is why I feel like a lot of people made some big decisions in 2020 and 2021, because they had time to think, what do I want? Where am I going? What's really important to me? What do I value? Where do I want to be? Who do I want to be with? What kind of person do I want to be?

Where do I want to work? What kind of work do I want to be doing? And maybe for the first time in a long time, people had time to really think about those kinds of questions. And it was during COVID when people were making big life decisions. They were changing jobs, changing careers, moving, leaving relationships, getting married, having babies. It's like the time to think caused a big reset. So now that life is getting somewhat back to normal, are you creating time to think? My creative director and I were meeting this past week and she asked me, "What does it mean to you to be wealthy?" Because one of the courses that's within the School of Self-Image membership is called The Wealthy Woman, and we were talking about that program in particular. And immediately, what I thought about was space. Space to breathe, space to think, space to create.

To me, that's wealth. I don't think about big cars and big houses. I think about time and space. And maybe that's why even though I grew up poor, fiscally speaking, in many ways my life felt rich growing up in the deep South because we valued time. There was time to just be. And ironically, my very first company was called Just Be Living. I don't know if any of you have been with me since the very beginning, but that was my first company because I knew deep down inside, this is what people need. We need space to be, to be with ourselves, to be with our own thinking, to be with nature. Because if you don't take the time to be with you, then you're constantly going to be reacting to life. You're going to feel like you are going through life without purpose. You're going to feel like you're going through life without a guide, because you haven't taken the time to think on your life as to what's important. What do I value? What do I want to create, what I want to do.

Back in 2020, during COVID, as most people, had a lot of time to think, and what I've noticed is that when you remove yourself from your usual environment and you place yourself in a new environment with the purpose of thinking on your life, that's when you can get some really great downloads because you're not being triggered by the same stimuli that's triggering the same thoughts. You've got new things around you, which is why I love to have working retreats where I go away from home. And it might be in the same town. I just go check into a hotel. But I place myself in new environments because I find that that's when I'm most creative, and that's how I can shake myself out of old ways of thinking. So going back to COVID during 2020, I went to California, went to Beverly Hills. And California was still pretty locked down.

So I was in the hotel a lot and I had a lot of time to just think, but I was in a new environment, and it was there that I made some big decisions. I decided to leave a relationship, I decided to completely change my business, and I decided to move. And that was because I had time to really think on my life, to really just sit there with pen and paper and ask myself some really good questions. Because the quality of your life really is determined by the quality of your questions, but we need time to ask ourselves the questions and then have time to actually hear our own answers. And sometimes that takes a little bit of time, to hear the truth of ourselves. I like to spend 10% of my time in deep thinking. So that could look like one day a week.

I consider Mondays to be my thinking days. It could be in terms of weeks in a year, 10% of 52 is a little over five weeks. So you think about that's our vacation time. That's time for us to unplug and spend time thinking on our life. You can also think about 10% of your day. So it depends on how many hours you are awake, but on average, 16 hours most people are awake. So that's like one and a half hours of thinking on your life. This is why I love journaling in the morning. It's why sometimes during the day, I just like to step away and go for a walk and think, because my best downloads, my creative moments come from that time where I am unplugging from reacting to life and thinking more meta, thinking bigger picture. So what does one do during thinking time?

Well, it can vary. For me personally, sometimes I use my thinking time to dream and create. And so this is when I ask a lot of questions about my future. What would I love? That's one of my favorite journaling questions. What would I love right now? What would I love to create? What would I love to see more of in the world? What would I love to experience? What would I love to be? And just allow myself to write and dream and use my imagination in fun ways. Sometimes I use my thinking time to work through an obstacle, a challenge, a struggle. So if it's a relationship that I'm wanting to work on, then I'm going to do a lot of journaling about my thoughts about that person. If it's my business and there's an obstacle that I'm facing, I'm going to write down all of my thinking around that obstacle and look at how I might be contributing to it, how I might be helping co-create the obstacle, or I may just brainstorm what are all of the potential solutions to this obstacle?

And then sometimes my thinking time is more logistical, where I am just putting pen to paper and I am writing out plans for a project, or plans for my life, like A, B, C, D kind of thing. So thinking time can be used in many different ways. But for me, the distinction is I'm using my brain very purposefully, and it's a creative moment for me, where I am thinking and putting ideas and plans onto paper versus consuming. Because a lot of people spend a lot of time in consumption versus creation. And if you feel like you're not creating results, just look at what your ratio is. How much time are you spending consuming things? And how much time are you spending in creating? And this is why the members of the School of Self-Image get such great results, because I preach this. I'm like, listen, come to the calls and learn, but now I want you to take that one thing and go out there and create something with that.

Go use that tool to create evidence to create something new because it's really important that we create, as human beings, or we can start to feel stagnant. We can start to feel stuck. So creativity from our thinking time is key. In fact, the word creativity is derived from the Latin creare, which means to make. And then there's a Greek term called [foreign language 00:11:10], I think is how you pronounce it, which means to fulfill. And I feel like creativity is the secret to our own fulfillment. And in order to create, you need time to think because everything that is created is result of thinking. Look around you right now. Everything that you see started with a thought.

So we need thinking time in order to be creative. Another very intentional thinking time that I create for myself is by going to events, being a part of my mastermind. These are moments where not only am I removing myself and putting myself in a different environment, but those environments are serving that purpose. That is the purpose of those environments, to provide thought-provoking questions, to provide inspiration so that I can think on my life in a new, fun, and creative way. And so I want you to ask yourself, how often are you thinking on your life? And if it's not a daily practice, I really encourage you to make it one. Even if it's for five to 10 minutes in the morning, thinking about what would you love? Where are you being challenged? What do you want to create? Where do you want to go? What goals do you have?

Maybe it's about making plans for those goals. And if you're within the School of Self-Image membership, we have a more structured way to go about this thinking time. You can find it in your daily three journal. It's our daily practice within the membership. I also encourage you to take this concept and apply it in a bigger way. And the way that looks is to take a weekend and plan on having a retreat for yourself with yourself. Now, you can go to a retreat. That's one option, or you can create one yourself. I even did a podcast talking about working retreats and how I go about that. But sometimes it's fun to put yourself in a retreat that's been created for you around inspiring people in an elevated environment and where you're guided in this kind of thinking, where you're guided to really process your life in a much bigger and more expansive way.

This is one of the reasons why I really love hosting events. I love seeing the big ahas and the big shifts that happen, when women finally get a moment to breathe and to really think on their lives. Because we know when you're a mom, when you're working, when you have a lot of responsibilities, maybe you're taking care of your parents, when you're running a business, when you have all of these things that are taking up so much of your time or attention, it can become more difficult to have this thinking time. But when you attend an event and you set aside that time for this purpose, and then you are being guided, you are being supported, that's when magic can happen. I've had women leave my events with plans in hand that forever changed their lives. They quit their jobs, they started their businesses, they left relationships, they got married, they moved, and it's all because they had a moment to really ask themselves, what do I want for my life?

What's really important? And then having the support around you to believe in you, and to hold you and to cheer you on is so, so powerful. And if you've never been to one of my events, what in the world? I know I'm biased because they're are events, but I've been told by many people who attend that it's the best event they've ever been to. And many of the women come back because it's so good. And if you want to experience a SOSI event, we are opened right now for our SOSI South, which is going to be held in New Orleans in November, first weekend in November. And this is going to be the best one we've ever done. And the whole theme of this event is your charmed life. I want to teach you how to create everyday magic in your life, and that's what we're going to be doing at SOSI South. So if you're craving this kind of thinking time and you want to be in a beautiful location with extraordinary people and have time to think on your life, come join us.

You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/south and read all about it. It's a party, it's a celebration, it's learning, it's applying, it's being with extraordinary women. It's the event of a lifetime, so go check it out. We would love, love to see you there. And most importantly, just commit to taking the first step to creating thinking time in your life. That 10% of my thinking time is creating 90% of my life. It's that important. So if you want to create your life on purpose, if you want to be intentional, if you want to be deliberate, then you must, must, must create space to think on your life. Have a beautiful week, my friends, and I will see you and the next episode. Cheers.

Hey, have you grabbed your free copy of the School of Self-Image Manifesto? If not, what in the world? Head over to schoolofselfimage.com/manifesto, and get a copy that teaches you how to think and show up in the areas of mindset, style, and surroundings so that you can transform your self-image.

Episode Transcript:Enjoy the Show? Don't miss another episode!Pick your favorite platform below:The Self-Image Manifesto

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Listen to the Full Episode:In this episode of the School of Self-Image podcast, life coach Tonya Leigh interviews her first video podcast guest, Alessia Tenebruso, owner of "One Girl Travel," a solo travel-focused life coaching company. Alessia shares her experience of how solo travel has changed her self-image and how it can empower women. Tonya and Alessia also discuss the benefits of travel for personal development and creating a positive self-image.What You Will Discover with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: 0:03:18 Travel and self-image impact * 0:04:07 Solo travel as personal growth * 0:08:05 Traveling alone safety tips * 0:11:22 What thoughts you're telling yourself * 0:15:23 Living life like a vacation * 0:20:25 Fashion and identity while traveling * 0:23:46 I am my future self * 0:27:41 Solo travel forces decisiveness * 0:29:38 Solo traveling guide QuotesConnect with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: One Girl Travel: https://onegirltravel.com/* * *Join Now! https://schoolofselfimage.com/join* * *FREE Download: https://schoolofselfimage.com/self-image-manifesto/* * *Give yourself the Royal Treatment! Enroll now here: http://schoolofselfimage.com/royal/* * Website: *https://schoolofselfimage.com * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tonyaleigh * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TonyaLeighOfficial * TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thetonyaleigh * YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TonyaLeighOfficial DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTTonya Leigh:
When people ask me what has had the biggest impact on my self-image, it's hard to choose just one thing, but I will tell you, in the top three things is travel. Travel has definitely changed how I see myself. And because of this, I'm so excited for today's episode where I am talking with our first ever guest on the School of Self-Image podcast about travel and self-image. So let's dive in.
Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.
Tonya Leigh:
Hello, my friends, and welcome to this episode of the podcast. I am super excited about today because I'm doing something for the very first time. I have my very first guest for the School of Self-Image podcast, and I could not think of a better person to introduce you to than Alessia Tenebruso. I have known Alessia ... I don't know. How many years have we known each other?
Alessia Tenebruso:
Almost 10 years.
Tonya Leigh:
10 years.
Alessia Tenebruso:
Almost coming on 10 years. So it's like nine.
Tonya Leigh:
How crazy is that? So, Alessia has been a client. She is a School of Self-Image member. She's been with me on my Paris retreats and I've watched her just talk about self-image. I've watched you completely transform, start your own company, and you're just crushing it. And so I'm excited to bring you on to talk about your area of expertise, which is solo travel, and specifically how solo travel or even travel in general can change our self-image. So, welcome to the podcast.
Alessia Tenebruso:
Thank you. I'm honored to be here with you.
Tonya Leigh:
So fun. So, tell us more about you. Tell us about what you do and why you do it.
Alessia Tenebruso:
Sure. So, I'm Alessia and I am the owner of One Girl Travel. One Girl Travel is a solo travel focused life coaching company where I help empower women to realize how capable they are of doing anything they desire in life, but specifically traveling. I provide them with all the information they need to go out and travel and to stop waiting on other people and to live the life that they desire. I've been solo traveling for 11 years now. Just came up 11 years yesterday, and it has changed my life. And I know the power that solo travel and life coaching has, and that's why I put the two together and created One Girl Travel.
Tonya Leigh:
Oh, I love it. It's so unique and so different. And like you, travel has been one of the main things that's changed me. Within the School of Self-Image, as you know, we talk about mindset, style, and environment. And when I think about environment and travel specifically, there's something powerful about taking yourself out of your usual environment and putting you in places that probably make you feel uncomfortable, but also provide you access to new ideas, new thoughts, new ways of seeing the world and yourself. And so when it comes to travel and you think about your self-image, how has travel impacted how you see yourself?
Alessia Tenebruso:
It has completely changed my life, to be honest. When I first started this journey, I was in a mentally abusive relationship where I was constantly told I wasn't good enough, wasn't pretty enough, I wasn't thin enough, all the things. And when the relationship ended, I was completely broken. I didn't know who I was anymore because I depended on him so much for my happiness or whatever I was experiencing during that time. And I realized that I needed to rediscover who I am. And back then, I was very shy. I was very timid, very quiet.
Tonya Leigh:
So crazy to think about. Look at you now.
Alessia Tenebruso:
Now I'm like the mayor whenever I see anybody. Yeah, and very self-conscious. I did not have a good relationship with myself at all back then. And so I knew I needed to do something completely different and step outside my comfort zone. I'm like, I need to go on a trip by myself. And that's what started it for me. I took a trip to Florida and it changed my life.
Tonya Leigh:
God, let's talk about that trip.
Alessia Tenebruso:
Yeah. Okay.
Tonya Leigh:
How many days was it?
Alessia Tenebruso:
It was a week long trip-
Tonya Leigh:
Wow.
Alessia Tenebruso:
... and I chose Florida because I was familiar with it. I stayed at my grandparents' condo, which I've been to before, but they weren't there with me. So I was familiar with the area, but I wouldn't even go to a fast food restaurant by myself, let alone get on a plane and go and to a restaurant by myself, go meet people by myself. That was all completely new to me. And from the moment I stepped on that airplane, there was somebody sitting next to me around my age and he was a solo traveler. And I've never had a conversation with anybody on a flight before, and him and I talked the entire flight and he showed me photos of all of his travels. I'm getting the chills talking about it because I just felt so guided on that trip by the universe like, this is right. You're doing the right thing.
And so I talked to him the whole trip. And then during my trip, more people just gravitated to me and I met so many people and I just felt so sure that I was doing the right thing, that I was on the right path. And I'm like, I need to keep doing this because I did a lot of firsts on that trip. I did a fishing excursion by myself and I made friends on the boat. I went out for meals by myself because I didn't want to sit in the condo and just eat alone. And I really just forced myself outside of my comfort zone and I realized that I could do it. You know? Like, okay, I got this. I can do this. Now what else can I do? [inaudible 00:05:56].
Tonya Leigh:
Yeah, it's so crazy because I'm sure there's some women listening to this who have traveled very little, or if you're like me, you traveled, but you always depended on someone else to plan it, like the man. And so I remember booking my first trip and how amazing it was. I was like, oh, it's not as hard as I think it is to travel. Right? You just go online. You book an airline ticket, you book a hotel, and then you just go. You follow the plan that you created for yourself. And something that was so hard in my brain turned out to be something that was so simple. It's crazy how our brain tries to scare us into our comfort zone.
Alessia Tenebruso:
Exactly.
Tonya Leigh:
But once you get over that, it's like the world really does become your playground. Really does.
Alessia Tenebruso:
Yeah, I agree. Our thoughts are what decides whether we're going to do it or not, and we have to manage those. And that's why I created One Girl Travel, to help with those thoughts.
Tonya Leigh:
Yeah. So what do you think the biggest obstacles to solo travel are for women?
Alessia Tenebruso:
There's many obstacles, I feel. Just as a solo traveler in general, there's the cost of solo traveling, which a lot of people don't realize that it's actually sometimes more expensive for a solo traveler because we have single supplement fees where we're paying for two people even though we're one person.
Tonya Leigh:
Oh, I didn't even think about that.
Alessia Tenebruso:
Yeah. So that's actually why I started cruising. My first big trip was a cruise from New York to Bermuda, and I chose that because it felt safe to me, and it also had studio rooms for solo travelers and meetups. And I actually met a guy from Italy on that trip that I'm still friends with to this day who met me in Paris when I was with you. Yeah. So, you meet great people when you're traveling alone. So yeah, be mindful of single supplement fees and see if you can get it waived or if you can find something where they have accommodations for solo travelers. That's one obstacle. The other, of course, is safety. That's your main priority when you're traveling alone because you are completely reliant on yourself for everything, and especially your safety.
So, you just need to be aware of your surroundings. I personally like to share my itinerary with my family and my trusted friends so they know where I am. I actually share my GPS location as well, so they know exactly where I am at all times. And another tip I would have is when you're checking into your hotel, just make sure the doors lock, the windows lock, and just do a quick tour of the room, make sure there's nobody hiding in there. I know it's very rare for that to happen, but it's better to be safe than sorry when you're traveling by yourself. But there are so many safety tips that I have. I have a long list of safety tips I can share with you.
Tonya Leigh:
Awesome. I think one of the biggest fears, and I'm curious to see what your answer is, but women don't know how to be with themselves, a lot of women. Because growing up, I know for me, I was so busy taking care of other people, being around other people, being with myself actually scared me. And so I would avoid it because the few times that I was with myself, I was with my brain, and my brain at the time was not a pleasant place to be. And so I'm sure for women who are considering this, or maybe you've even gone on a solo trip and you're like, "It was awful. I hated it," that's not a reason I don't think not to do it. I think that's a reason to do it, as you said at the beginning, to get to know yourself.
Because at the end of the day, the most important relationship you have is the one with yourself, and solo travel is a way for you to create that intimacy with yourself, get to know what's going on in your brain and get to know what you like and what you don't like. Because when you travel by yourself, you're making all the decisions. You're deciding what restaurants to go to, you decide when to wake up, when to go to bed. It's actually ultimate freedom, but it also can be very scary. And so has that ever happened to you where you're like, "Ugh, I don't even want to be with myself and I'm stuck in this room in Mexico. What do I do here?" And how did you work through that?
Alessia Tenebruso:
Yeah, absolutely. I find that during the day it's easy because there's so many activities to keep your mind occupied. You do a lot of things, but it's when you're back in your hotel room for the night and then you're by yourself in this room and all the thoughts decide to come and join you and spend the night with you, and you have to pay attention to what thoughts you're telling yourself and manage those thoughts. That's the biggest part and the biggest thing that I have had to work on through the trips. So I'm not going to say my first trip, I was able to manage my thoughts and that's it. Those thoughts came, I felt them, and I still moved on. I still did the things even though I was scared, even though I was telling myself, "Hey, you're not good at this. You don't know what you're doing." You know? But over time, the more I did it, the more I was able to manage my thoughts. And the biggest thing is to pay attention to what you're telling yourself and then try, as you've taught me honestly, is to how to navigate your thoughts and make them work for you to know what you're telling yourself and try to make them still believable, but in a better way to help you move forward.
Tonya Leigh:
Yeah. Have you ever been super lonely on a solo trip?
Alessia Tenebruso:
There have been times where I've been super lonely. When everyone's dancing, like the nightlife. I'll be like, oh, I miss my friends. I want to dance. But now I go and dance. So that was [inaudible 00:11:51].
Tonya Leigh:
I was like, I can't imagine you not dancing.
Alessia Tenebruso:
Now I dance. But in the beginning, it's intimidating when you see all these people together and they're all having fun. I'm like, oh, I miss my group of friends. They'd be here with me having fun. But then I'm like, I'm here for a reason. I chose to go on this trip by myself. I have to tell people, "No, you're not allowed to come with me," because I need this. It's not for the lack of not having people to travel with me. It's because I need to have that feeling of being uncomfortable, because I know I'm going to grow as a person every time I do this. And so I do feel lonely on occasion when there's activities like that. But honestly now at this point, I don't really feel lonely because I truly feel like I am my own best friend. And that's something I learned through solo travel, spending more time by myself.
Tonya Leigh:
Yeah. And I think the lesson there for all of you is not to avoid that time with yourself. Because I think sometimes, as I was saying earlier, when you're left alone with your own brain and it's so painful, and especially if you don't have the tools, you don't even know how to deal with all of that. The tendency is like, oh, I don't want to travel by myself. But what if you embrace that? I even watch women who when they come to the social live events, and they're so nervous. Some of them have never traveled without their spouse. Some of them have never traveled on their own. Some of them have traveled very little and they're so nervous. But I watch them say yes to that and how it changes their lives, just knowing I can do something on my own. And then they get all of this time with themselves, even though we have events or activities throughout the day, they have this time with themselves to really think about your life.
How often do we get to think about our lives? Because we're so busy in them. And I'm sure for you, just because I know you, when you're out traveling, you're spending time thinking on your life, thinking about what you want, what your vision is, what you're going to do with your company. And that I find to be a lot more difficult when you're at home and you're familiar environment. When I'm traveling, that's like when I get to dream and think of what I want, what I don't want. It's a very reflective time. So I'm just curious if you use your solo travel strategically for that visioning process. Yeah.
Alessia Tenebruso:
I feel like I have the best ideas when I'm traveling by myself because I'm not working. I have the time for myself. I get to focus my attention on myself. And that allows me to realize, okay, now when I come home, how am I going to do things differently? What have I learned from this trip that I can implement into my life? And that's what I like to call the solo travel lifestyle, because the trip is just a physical act of going and exploring and doing things by yourself, but it's when you pull those things that you learned into your daily life so every day feels like you're living a vacation, you're living your life the way that you want to live it. And I have implemented so many things that I've learned from solo traveling into my everyday life, and it's made my life so much better.
Tonya Leigh:
I have to say, in watching you and watching you not only solo travel, but build your company, and it's just been very inspiring. And the one thing that you do, and I think so many of us just watching all of how you do it is how you really do live your life like a vacation. Every time I see you, you're going to concerts, you're out with friends. It's like you really do embrace the moment. And I remember when we went to Paris, when you came to my retreat, you had a ... Because you're a big Jimmy Buffett fan, you had a Jimmy Buffett concert planned. You had a photo shoot planned. You just embraced that trip and maximized it instead of ... And I'm sure you felt uncomfortable and you probably had your fears, but instead of listening to those, it's almost like you ignore them. And not only do you ignore them, you go in the opposite direction and just live that experience so fully that the fear has no space, if that makes sense. I don't know how to say it other than you just grab it and just squeeze every ounce of juice out of the experience. And that's what I just appreciate so much about watching you.
Alessia Tenebruso:
Yeah. I know that I want to enjoy my life and I want to experience as much fun as possible in my life, and that fun is worth me being uncomfortable for. I know what the outcome is. If I just get through that discomfort, I know that I'm going to grow. I know I'm going to have a great time, so I just do it anyway.
Tonya Leigh:
Yeah.
Alessia Tenebruso:
[inaudible 00:16:41].
Tonya Leigh:
There has to be something in your brain at this point that has linked fun and discomfort together. Let's think about that. Because I think all of us want to have fun, but when we think about being uncomfortable, we think that that's the opposite of fun, so we run away from it. But what if we saw discomfort as fun, like as a challenge that we get to embrace and work through and go beyond? Which is what I see you do with solo travel.
Alessia Tenebruso:
Yeah. And honestly, I haven't really thought of it like that, but now that you say it, it just kind of clicked in my head. I think I've always kind of been that way where I would always find fun in challenging myself. As you know, I joined the boys wrestling team in high school. That was hard. That was so hard, one of the hardest things I ever did in my life. But it was one of the best things I ever did. That was the best decision I ever made in my life. And I think I learned from a young age, if you push yourself and see what you're capable of, that is so much fun because then it's like a challenge. What else am I capable of? What else can I do in my life that's going to make me proud of myself? And I really do feel like that's how I live my life every day.
Tonya Leigh:
Yeah. And again, it's such a fun honor to witness. It really is. So, what do you say to the woman who is listening to this and she's thinking to herself, "I really would love to go on a solo trip. I'd really love to have that experience, but I'm scared and I don't know where to start." Where would you encourage her to start?
Alessia Tenebruso:
I would encourage her to start somewhere locally. If you never have done anything by yourself, I would not recommend you go on a seven-day trip to Paris. That's a very big jump. So I recommend if you've never done anything by yourself, if you've never had a meal by yourself, start doing things alone. Start with a walk in your neighborhood and then go explore a new neighborhood. Gradually increase your discomfort levels. But let's you're used to going out for meals by yourself, and you travel for work, so you're kind of used to traveling. So then go somewhere you've never been before and spend a long weekend. You know, just work your way up. But I always recommend get a hotel room in a town nearby that you always wanted to try out and spend the night by yourself. Because even that act, you're going to be alone with your thoughts. You're going to be focusing only on you, especially if you have a family or a spouse or pets, whatever, where your focus is always on everybody else. You might not have the opportunity to focus on yourself until you're by yourself in that hotel room. And that is a huge accomplishment on its own to spend that time alone and just hear what you have to say to yourself and how do you get through it. And then keep pushing yourself and trying bigger travels.
Tonya Leigh:
Yeah. And if you don't like what you're saying to yourself, change it.
Alessia Tenebruso:
Yeah.
Tonya Leigh:
You want to like being with you, and I think that's what solo travel can offer. And the other thing, I was just thinking about this, and I'm curious if you've ever thought about this or played around with this idea, but I remember when I went on my first solo trip internationally, I went to France. And I had been to France before, so I had that comfort level, but I never traveled internationally on my own with no one, just me. And I remember getting off the plane and having this sense of creative energy because I realized ... So, you know when you're in your usual environments around the same people, they're always reminding you of who you've been. But this, no one knew who I had been. No one knew that I had struggled with my weight. No one knew that I was starting my company. No one knew. And I literally felt like I can try on all these different energies. I can practice being whoever I want to be, and no one knows that that's not who I am yet. Because eventually I did become that. And so do you find that when you're traveling solo, it's this opportunity for you to step into a new identity that you've been wanting to step into?
Alessia Tenebruso:
It is one of my favorite aspects of solo travel. Growing up and stuff, I've always been more of a tomboy. And when I first started solo traveling, especially with the cruises, I'd be like, nobody knows who I am. I can wear whatever I want. Because at home, when you're ... I've been friends with the same friends all my life since school, and they know me as one version of myself, and when I'm traveling, no one knows me. I can be my future self. I knew who my future self was, what she looked like, what she wore. And I'm like, I can be her. I can start acting like her now. And I would wear these gowns to dinner where people would be like, "Oh, are you having dinner with the captain?" I'm like, "No, I'm just having dinner by myself."
And I loved it. I loved that feeling. And I felt like it was almost like my ... you know how a superhero has their costume or their cape or whatever? That was mine. That gave me the confidence I needed to go and have a meal by myself and feel good about the experience and enjoy my own company. Just my future self was really like that armor for me that I got to just show up as who I wanted to be, and now I became her. And that's the craziest part. I'm like, wait, I am my future self from back then. I became her by being her. You know?
Tonya Leigh:
I know. When you talk about the version of you that's shy, I'm like, where did she go? Because that's not the Alessia I know now, which you think about it. You show up on these solo trips and you practice, like, what would an outgoing woman do? What would a wealthy woman do? What would a woman who's in love with her life, how would she walk into a room? And you get to practice that without having Billy who's known you for 20 years saying, "Ugh, who do you think you are, Alessia?" Right? You don't have that noise. Or usually it's the noise in her own head about what we think the people that know us is going to say. Right? So you don't have that. So it's like this beautiful canvas for you to play, which is another reason why y'all should be solo traveling, even if it's just a weekend away at a close by resort or hotel, just to give yourself that experience. I think it's super fun.
Alessia Tenebruso:
Yeah, it truly is. It's so much fun. As you were saying it, I'm lighting up like, oh, I love this part. It's so much fun.
Tonya Leigh:
And I think that's how travel can impact your self-image. So, not only does it allow you ... It's like, for example, when I went to Paris for the first time. Sometimes I'll ask women, "Who do you want to be?" But sometimes women don't have the words yet. They know a feeling, but they don't know what that looks like because maybe they've never been exposed to it. At least that was me. And so when I went to Paris for the first time and I just saw how these women dressed and how they ate and just their je ne sais quoi, so to speak, I was like, "Oh, that's it." I was able to see what I had been feeling that I wanted. And I think travel exposes you to the potential of what your future could be. I just got back from Dubai and, girl, you got to put that on your list, by the way. It's amazing.
Alessia Tenebruso:
Major FOMO looking at all of your pictures.
Tonya Leigh:
But I got to access a new potential reality, new ideas that don't exist in my current reality. And so for all of you listening, putting yourself in these new environments, as you know, Alessia, you're going to have so much more exposure to what's possible. I think about you meeting all these people and probably the ideas that you've gotten and the shifts in thinking and perspective. I'm sure you have too many to even tell, but it's only because you've been solo traveling for so long.
Alessia Tenebruso:
Exactly.
Tonya Leigh:
So, what advice do you give to women who want to solo travel?
Alessia Tenebruso:
Just do it. I tell my members all the time, when you begin this journey, it's going to be uncomfortable. I'm telling you upfront, it will be uncomfortable. Know that going into it and do it anyway. Nobody starts anything as professional. We all start as beginners. You're going to figure it out as you go. You can't fail at solo traveling. The only way you're going to fail at it is if you don't learn anything from the experience. As long as you figure out something about yourself, or when you're traveling by yourself, you're going to learn what you like, what you dislike, what time you like to eat, the food you like to eat, when you want to go to bed, all the things you want to do. So just pay attention to those things and really implement them into your life to make your life feel good to you and create the life that you desire for yourself.
And so do it. Just go and do it. Know that it's going to be uncomfortable at first, but over time, you will get more and more comfortable and you're going to grow as a person, and eventually you're going to create this life for yourself that you've dreamed of. It's really that powerful. That's why I am just so adamant about everybody going out and traveling, especially women, because we're always told, "Oh, you should be careful going there.: Even I still hear it to this day. I'm like, okay, I'm still going no matter what.
Tonya Leigh:
Or you need a man to do it.
Alessia Tenebruso:
Oh, yeah, please. Yeah. That's what we're told all the time. Don't. You need yourself. And the biggest part of it is you have to have your own back. You have to be your best friend. To this day, I still will repeat affirmations in my head, like a mantra, like you got this, you can do this. You're strong, you're capable. I have to remind myself sometimes because I'm scared, but I do it anyway because I know I'll get through it. And as long as I'm supporting myself and I have my own back and I am just taking care of myself, I'm going to be fine. And you will be too. Just trust yourself.
Tonya Leigh:
Better than fine. You are thriving. The one last thing I'll say ... Probably not the last thing, because every time you talk, I'm like, oh, there's another nugget. But here's another advantage that I just realized as you were talking, because you were talking about you get to decide when you go to bed and where you eat and what you eat. One of the other benefits of solo travel is you have to be decisive. And I know some of y'all struggle with being decisive, but if you're not, you're just going to be sitting in your room all weekend eating nothing and being really sad because you're not going out. You have to decide. And I think that is another huge, huge benefit of solo travel because it's going to force you to figure out what you want to eat, where you want to eat, what time you want to get up, what you want to do. And these are the little decisions that we sometimes abdicate to other people. Like, "I don't know, what do you want to do? Where do you want to eat? What should I do?" And that kind of energy keeps you stuck. We have to be more decisive as women, and solo travel is an opportunity to practice that skill, I think. Not I think. We know because-
Alessia Tenebruso:
Absolutely.
Tonya Leigh:
... you're not making decisions, you're not going anywhere.
Alessia Tenebruso:
Yeah. It really to taught me how to be bold and how to just be visible to people. My sister, she would always joke like, "Oh, you're such a shrinking violet." I don't know if you remember that phrase, or I think it was a show or something, but now after I come back from trips, they'll be like, "Whoa, you're not a shrinking violet anymore." Because now I'll take command of a room. Now I'll speak up for things. And I like to kind of challenge myself to speak up on certain occasions. Like in a restaurant, if they'd put me in the middle of the room and I don't feel comfortable there, I'll speak up and be like, "Oh, can I sit by the window over there? Can you move me?" And I used to be so embarrassed when my mom would do that, and now I'm like, I will always speak up because I have my own back. That's what solo travel taught me. Speak up for myself. If I want to have a good time, I need to do it on my terms, and I know what feels good to me now. And so you have to speak up for yourself to make sure that you're having the best time possible on your terms.
Tonya Leigh:
Yeah, I love that. So, tell everybody listening where they can find out more about the incredible Alessia Tenebruso and One Girl Travel.
Alessia Tenebruso:
Yes. So actually, if you sign up for my mailing list, you go to onegirltravel.com, you will receive my free guide. It's 10 tips on how to begin solo traveling, and it has everything you need to get started on this journey and start taking action on your dreams and go live the life that you desire through solo travel. So go to onegirltravel.com, you can sign up there, and yeah, I'll send it over to you in your inbox.
Tonya Leigh:
Fantastic. Last question. Where's your next trip?
Alessia Tenebruso:
I'm going to Bermuda actually next week. It's not a solo trip, though. It was supposed to be a solo trip, and then everyone wanted to come with me, so I'm like, "Sure, come with me."
Tonya Leigh:
Well, listen, you don't always have to travel solo.
Alessia Tenebruso:
I Know. It's still fun traveling with other people. And the great thing is that I can still feel comfortable doing things by myself and keeping up for myself. Like, okay, I need time alone. Let me go do this. And you can still do solo activities even though you're with a group of people.
Tonya Leigh:
Aw. Well, have the best trip. Thank you so much-
Alessia Tenebruso:
Thank you.
Tonya Leigh:
... and thank you for being my first guest on the-
Alessia Tenebruso:
So honored.
Tonya Leigh:
... School of Self-Image podcast. Love you.

Thanks everybody. Take care. Bye-bye.

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How many languages do you speak?

I must speak at least 50.

English, of course.

Some French.

Southern - if you count that. (Lord knows most people can’t understand my Mama.)

And the rest of the languages I speak are… emotions.

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LISTEN TO THE PODCAST// TheEDIT

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Listen to the Full Episode:On this episode of the School of Self-Image Podcast with host and Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh, she breaks down her top lessons from growing up in the South. Tonya is back in the South after being away for many years and reflects upon the importance of environment in personal development. With deep gratitude for being back home, she admires the beauty of the trees in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the lessons that served her well learned from growing up in the South.What You Will Discover with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: 0:00:00 Growing Up in the South * 0:06:33 Don't get too big * 0:11:20 Never be too busy * 0:12:54 Balancing goals and relationships * 0:19:56 Slowing down and being present * 0:21:44 Living life in a rush QuotesConnect with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: Join Now! https://schoolofselfimage.com/join* * *FREE Download: https://schoolofselfimage.com/self-image-manifesto/* * *Give yourself the Royal Treatment! Enroll now here: http://schoolofselfimage.com/royal/* * Website: *https://schoolofselfimage.com * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tonyaleigh * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TonyaLeighOfficial * TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thetonyaleigh * YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TonyaLeighOfficial DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTFrom yes ma'am, and no ma'am to bless your heart. Here are my top lessons learned from growing up in the South. Enjoy.
Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.
Hello, my beautiful friends. How's your week? How are you feeling? I am feeling so incredibly blessed, and full of gratitude. Do you know what I'm so grateful for? Well, there are a lot of things, actually. But right now, I am so grateful to be back home in the South, and I never thought I would utter those words. I was that girl who said to myself, if I can ever get out of here, I'm never coming back. Be careful what you say you'll never do, because chances are that's probably going to be what you do, but I am so happy to be home. Sometimes, you have to leave to find yourself. It's why I talk about environment, all of the time, within the School of Self-Image, because when you are in an environment that is triggering your old ways of thinking and feeling and being, sometimes, it's hard to change in that environment.
It's not that we can't, I've changed a lot in very familiar environments. But leaving the South allowed me to really get a perspective on the world, and myself, and the next version of me, and who I really am. Now, I'm back as a very different woman, and I'm just so happy here. My friend Casey, she flew in for the weekend, and all I could talk about with her is how much I love the trees here. I am seriously blown away by the trees in Charlotte, North Carolina. For those of you who live here or you've been here in this time of year, it is stunning. The amount of greenery that is here, I just cannot get enough. I feel so incredibly blessed. I find the South to be such a charming place. If you've never visited the south, I highly encourage you to put aside what you may have heard about it and give it a shot, whether it is Charlotte, whether it is Charleston, or Savannah, or even parts of Georgia, even Louisiana.
There are some beautiful, beautiful places, and people in the South. It's also going to be where I host the next SOSI Live. For those of you within the membership, you've probably been hearing the buzz around SOSI South, which is what we're calling it, and we just opened it up to members, and it will sell out very quickly. If you are a member, and you want to have the most incredible, luxurious experience, me and my team throw the best event in town. In fact, one of my team members has been to over 100 events, and she says there's nothing out there like it. It is impactful, it is life-changing, it is fun, it is inspiring, and it's happening in New Orleans in November. Get your ticket, and come join us for SOSI South. The theme of this year's event is called The Charmed Life.
I am going to be teaching new concepts about magnetizing the life you want, how to create your own luck, how to be charming, and it's going to be taking place in the South, first weekend of November, so get your ticket. I cannot wait to see you there. Since I've been back home in the South, and we are getting ready for SOSI South, I've been thinking a lot about being raised in the South. I've talked a lot about my upbringing, and the things that have shaped me. Sometimes, it may seem that I have a terrible upbringing, and I want to apologize, because I don't ever want to tell that story. I try to tell the facts of the story, and the facts are I grew up in a trailer on a dirt road. I grew up with very little money. I grew up being raised in a Pentecostal Holiness Church.
However, we get to decide what we make the facts of our lives mean. The past or the future doesn't even exist. It's just a story in our minds. I've been thinking a lot about the wonderful stories that I have about my upbringing, and how being raised in the South has shaped me to be what I consider to be a very good human. I wanted to share some of those lessons with you. It's not that you have to be raised in the South to have these lessons, and some of you may share some of these, no matter where you were raised, but these are things that I was taught. I do find that it's a general way of thinking, and living, and being, when you're raised in the south. I hope it doesn't go anywhere. There's so many beautiful things about the southern way of life.
The first lesson that I want to share with you is one that was drilled in me as a child. For a long time, I used this in a negative way, meaning I think the way that I interpreted it, and some of the ways that it was presented to me, I think can hold you back. But in other ways, it can allow you to go forward in a really big, and impactful way. That lesson was don't ever get too big for your britches. Did you overhear that growing up? My mom, and my grandmother would tell me this. They'd be like, "Don't get too big for your britches. For a long time, I thought that meant to play small, but now I understand what they really meant. What they meant is, don't ever think that you are too good, don't ever think that you are better than anyone.
That was drilled in me as a child, and I am so grateful for that lesson, because I was telling my team the other day, I'm like, "Listen, if I'm at my own event, and a toilet needs to be scrubbed, and I'm the only one that can do it, I'm going to be in there scrubbing that toilet. I don't think I'm above anyone, and I'm not beneath anyone. I like to see us all working together for a common cause. And sometimes that means you got to get down and dirty." I grew up working very hard. My first job was at eight-years-old. I worked on the farm. I worked picking strawberries every summer. I worked in the tobacco fields, and so I know what it's like to work hard, and it was really instilled in me. Don't ever think you're too good to get dirty.
Don't ever think you're too good that you can't roll your sleeves up and get things done. Don't ever be too big for your britches. I now know that that did mean don't think highly of yourself, because my mom always drilled into me believe in yourself, but she also didn't want me to ever think that I was better than anyone. Today, that means that I can roll anywhere. You can take me to the trailer park, or you can take me to the penthouse. I know that we are just all people doing the best that we can, and no one is better than anyone else. I don't care how much money you have, I don't care what car you drive, I don't care what kind of designer clothes that you're wearing. It does not make you better than anyone. You are not above or beneath anyone.
If we could all just walk through the world with that knowing, we would be so much happier. Listen, I love nice things, but I also am okay with getting in a shuttle. My friend will laugh at this. She's like, "Girl, you're putting us in a shuttle." I'm like, "I can ride in a shuttle just like I can a limousine, because I know that my happiness is within me. I know that I can be, again, in a trailer around people I love, and have an amazing time, or I can be in a penthouse of people that I don't care about and be miserable. That's not what matters. What matters is who you are and who you're with." Don't ever be too big for your britches. The second thing I learned from being raised in the south is, can't never could.
My mom, and my grandma used to tell me this all of the time, can't never could. I never heard my mother say she couldn't do anything. My grandmother had 10 children, and her husband was disabled, and she was a sharecropper. She would work that land on her own, with all these kids. Can't did not exist. Can't would've gotten her killed, probably. Can't would've caused her not to be able to provide for her children, so it was not even an option. As a child, I was raised to believe can't never could. My mom did not tolerate I can't. My mom always, always told me, "Where there's a will, there's a way." She was a walking embodiment of that. I've talked about her on this podcast before, but my mom had polio when she was three, and a lot of people thought that she wouldn't be able to live a normal life.
My mom, instead of being a victim to that, she used it as fuel. She used that doubt, and that criticism of her as fuel to become stronger. My mom, to this day, she's almost 80, and to this day, if you tell her she can't do something, just because she's so stubborn, she's going to go out there and do it, just to prove you wrong. She might be miserable trying to do it, but she is going to try to prove you wrong, because her belief system is can't never could. That is something that I have found to be a very common philosophy with Southern people. Our work ethic, and our stubbornness, and our tenacity causes us to not believe in the can'ts, because we know can't never good. Another thing that I learned from being raised in the South, is never be too busy for what matters the most.
Being raised in the South, what always mattered the most was community, your family, and your friends. There was a time in my life where I forgot this. I was so caught up in growing my business, and working, and being a mom, and providing that I was on this hamster wheel of overwhelm, and I don't have enough time. And then I thought about my grandmother who, again, raised 10 children, worked hard, but she always, always had time for her family, and friends, always. Things didn't fall through the cracks, things still got done, but she was never too busy for what mattered the most. What matters the most are the people in our lives, our relationships. Without that, what do we really have? In our pursuit of extraordinary goals, which I also love, and remember, can't never could. We believe in our goals, especially at the School of Self-Image.
That's the work that we do, believing in, and showing up for our extraordinary goals. But I don't want us to ever sacrifice what's most important to us, in the pursuit of that. As someone who, a few times, I can remember being so obsessed with the goal, that I forgot this way of life. I can tell you that you're not going to be happy, if you sacrifice your relationships in the pursuit of a goal. Now, that doesn't mean give up the goal, never. It means figuring out how you can pursue your goal, and take time for your relationships. Your brain will help you come up with the answers as to how to do that. I just know that if I'm ever in a rush to reach a goal, then the energy that's fueling my action is not going to help me get the result that I want.
I've said many times that the way you create something is the way you experience it. If you create something out of anxiety, and fear, and rushing, when you finally possibly create that outcome, you're going to be full of anxiety. You're going to be rushing still. You're going to be worried, can I keep this up? We have to remind ourselves of that. When I think about my future self, she always makes time for her family, and friends. I need to bring that knowledge back to today, and ask myself, what am I going to do about that in my life right now? For me, that means scheduling lunches with my friends, scheduling weekends that I get to see my parents, scheduling getaways with my girlfriends, calling up friends, just making that a part of my everyday routine. Another lesson that I learned in the South is, always use your best.
This is something that I have to thank my mother for, because even though we grew up in a very modest home, my mom always used her best. She didn't save it for special holidays. She didn't save it until some grand event. My mom would pull out the China every weekend, on Sundays. We dressed up on Sundays to go to church. My mom had beautiful country curtains, do you all remember those, in our little trailer. My mom did the best with what she had, and she really taught me a beautiful lesson that I didn't realize was so important, until later when I noticed that a lot of people around me had a lot of fear around using their best. For me, I was like, "This is just what we do." Maybe it's because we didn't have a lot, that my mom was like, "If we don't do it now, when are we going to do it?"
She was always just making the ordinary extraordinary with what she had, by refusing to save it until one day later, and by making the most of what she had. That leads me to another lesson that I learned in the South is, appreciate what you have. My mom, she was really big on giving me a good talking to, or it's she would say, "Yeah. Come to Jesus meeting," when she would see me not express, and feel gratitude for what we had. Because it was very easy for me to get caught up, especially as a kid, and what all the other kids had, because I was wearing hand-me-downs. I didn't live in town with the other kids. I lived out in the country, on a dirt road. I found myself, as a child, always thinking that their life was better, and always talking about how they had more than me.
My mom was not having that. She would force me to look around, and really take in what I had. It may not have been a lot to some people, but now looking back, you all, I am so grateful for my humble beginnings. I'm so grateful for the way way I was raised, because it taught me these lessons. Even back then, we always had food on the table, always had shoes on our feet, and we had a lot of love in our home. I realized that that... I mean, what more could I ask for? Appreciating what you have was something that was instilled in me, as a young child. To this day, I have to remind myself, stop, and look around. Of course, there's always going to be people that have more than you, but there's also going to be people who don't have as much as you have.
Just focus on what you have, and actively appreciate it, because if you're not careful, you will spend your entire life wanting what you don't have yet, and failing to realize all the things that you currently have, that at one point in your life you probably wished for. I mean, that car you're driving, the home you live in, maybe that outfit that you're wearing, there was probably a time in your life, or even your children that you dreamed of having what you have now. Are you actively appreciating it? It feels so good to do so. Spend some time appreciating what you already have. Another lesson that I learned from being raised in the South is, don't be ugly. This has nothing to do with your physical appearance, just so you know. But it's something, if you're raised in the South, you get it.
You hear this growing up like, don't be ugly. What they meant was, don't have ugly behavior. Don't be rude, don't be impolite, don't go around gossiping about people, just don't be ugly. Be kind, and respectful. When I was growing up, we had to say, yes ma'am, and no ma'am, yes sir, and no sir, no, thank you. There was a level of expectation as to how you treated each other. Now, I realize it's one of the things that I appreciate about the French culture, and I didn't realize it at the time, but ma'am and sir, come from the French madame, and monsieur.
There is a level of civility, and respect for one another in how you communicate, and how you address people, and how you talk. I think that is a beautiful thing. I think, quite honestly, it's missing in a large portion of our society. People need to stop being so ugly, and mostly to themselves, because some of you all are ugly to yourselves, and that's where this work has to start. That's where I was the most ugly. I was the most ugly to myself. When I worked on that, it was so much easier to be nicer to other people, when you're being kind to yourself. The other thing that I learned from being raised in the South, and this one is so important, and that is to slow down, slow down, take it in, be here, be present, enjoy this moment, enjoy this day.
This goes hand in hand with what I was talking about earlier about never being too busy for your family, and friends. Never be too busy to sit down, and take a break, or to watch a sunset. For us, it was sitting on the front porch of my grandmother's little trailer. She had this screened-in front porch, and there were about six rocking chairs. We would all go to her place on Sundays, and she would cook every single Sunday, after a church. There were like five families, so there were at least, on some Sundays, there'd be 20 people there. We had to eat in shifts, because her trailer was so tiny. The adults always ate before the kids, which is very different now. We would just run around and play. But I just will never forget, just sitting on her porch in those rocking chairs, talking with each other, sipping sweet tea.
There was a beauty to that slowness, to that hereness, that we lost in this day and age, where we're always rushing to the next thing. Sometimes, people say to me, "But you talk about your future a lot." What I say to them is, "Yes, it is a guide. It can help focus us." But when we think about our future selves, is she in a rush? Is she panicked? Is she trying to hurry up and get there? No. She can guide us. Who is she? How is she being? Does she take time to sit on a front porch in the rocking chair, and talk to her grandmother, or her mother? I hope so. Now, there will be times when you will want to rush. I think about the French. They are experts in living the slow life, but they will also get in their cars, and drive like bats out of hell, to get to their country home.
They know when to speed up, and when to slow down. But a lot of us are living in full speed, and we're taking very little time to slow down, and enjoy our children, and to enjoy our spouse, and to enjoy this day. That was something that was drilled into me as a child. It was something that was so beautifully displayed. Even to this day, when I go home to visit my parents, this is the way of life. You sit down, and you eat, and you chat, and you relax, and you talk some more, and you watch some football, and there's just a slowness to it. Me, by my nature, I tend to go very fast. It's about finding that balance for you. I'm not saying everybody needs to go, and buy a rocking chair, and start drinking sweet tea. What I am inviting you to consider is that maybe there's an opportunity here for you to be a little more present, and to really look around, and take in your life today, appreciating what you have, while you are in the pursuit of what you deeply, deeply desire.
I have so many more lessons, but the final one that I want to leave you with is the lesson of bless her heart. Growing up, this was a very common saying, oh, bless her heart. Poor thing, poor Betty. She is over there trying the best she can with that grandchild of hers, bless her heart. That was the kind of language, and the way that we used that saying. But there was also, underneath that, underlying those three words was a true desire to see the people around you blessed, for you to really want to see your neighbors prosper, for your community to do well, and I've taken that with me. I love, I absolutely love to see the people around me doing well. I love to see them blessed. I love to see people succeeding and winning, and I talk often about how life is a boomerang. What you throw out, comes back at you.
The more I have not only been excited about people being blessed, but helping them figure out how they can be more blessed, the better my life has become, the more blessed I've become. It really does go back to my upbringing. My mom, and my father, and my grandmothers, they all drilled in me to love your neighbor, to never wish harm to anyone, to be kind. That has really allowed me to create this charming life, living by these simple principles of just loving people, and loving life, and being grateful for what you have has had such a tremendous impact on my life, and has truly allowed me to access the daily magic, almost. I can now trace it back to the beautiful lessons that I learned, from being raised in the South. There are many more that I did not even cover today. But I hope at least one of these blessed you, and that you can take something away from today's podcast, no matter where you were raised, and apply it to your life. Have a beautiful week, everyone. I will see you in next week's episode. Cheers.
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NO.Why is such a simple word SO hard to say sometimes?As for me, Tom, I’m a natural-born people pleaser. All my life, I’ve been saying “yes” when I meant no.To avoid judgmentTo get approvalTo fit inTo gain social favorTo protect myself from harmPeople-pleasing is in my nature but it’s not all bad. It can also be a very valuable skill.Without that powerful drive to make my clients and my team happy, for instance, I never could have built a wildly successful business.Client experience and customer service might be your superpower too if you love to please others.But there is a fine line between pleasing others and sabotaging yourself. It’s great to want to make people happy but not at the cost of your own happiness and values.YOU come first, no matter how counterintuitive that might feel (because the people-pleasing gene runs deep, my friend).I used to think prioritizing my needs was selfish but now I realize it’s a way of honoring myself. It’s also an incredibly provocative act.Because when you stop trying so hard to please the people around you, you will stir things up.For one thing, prepare to provoke discomfort, both in yourself and others - especially with the people who are used to the old version of you.But they will also start to see and treat you differently. More importantly, you’ll start to see and treat yourself differently - in all the best ways.That’s why this edition of The Edit, The Provocative Issue, is all about inspiring you to make the provocative choice to place yourself at the FRONT of the line.And you don’t have to stand up there alone, Tom. I’m here, along with the entire School of Self-Image community, to support your transformation into a woman who values her own perspective, above all others.I’m thrilled to announce that the doors to the School of Self-Image are finally open again - where putting yourself first is our love language. Won’t you join me inside? We’re open for a limited time only.It might just be the most provocative thing you ever do for yourself.Love,JOIN SCHOOL OF SELF-IMAGEPermission to value your opinions - especially the provocative ones.It’s easy to get swept up in the opinions of others, especially in our influencer culture.We’re constantly bombarded with messages telling us how to eat, dress, act, live, and even think a certain way.And while there is nothing wrong with looking outward for inspiration, no one’s perspective matters more than your OWN.You get to decide who you are, what you think of yourself, what you think about the world, and what you believe. You get to build an original life that’s true to you.In fact, I can’t think of anything more exciting and, dare I say, provocative than being the influencer of your own life. Defining your own style, regardless of trends. Sticking to your convictions, even when others disagree.Your opinions are power. They are the magic that separates you from the crowd. They make you YOU, so hold them close.In the School of Self-Image, you’ll find a community of provocateurs, just like you, ready to make waves and discover the power of your own perspectives.And I cannot wait to be your guide.You can join us today for $97, no commitment. Cancel anytime.JOIN OF SCHOOL OF SELF-IMAGEA Provocative Conversationwith Tracey Braxton-Beale“I'm celebrating that last week I got a nice haircut, manicure, AND a mini-facial … because the ‘future me’ gives lavishly to herself, says yes to the things she wants, and doesn't knee-jerk ‘NO’ herself anymore.But the REAL celebration is when my neighbor asked where I got my hair done. When I told her, she kinda stepped away, looked a little … shall we say … prim, and said ‘Ohhh, Fancy!’It seemed judgmental.Whether that was the intent or not, I know that MY thoughts about it are the main thing. And what started to come up was guilt and embarrassment. I wanted to justify, downplay it, and reassure her it ‘wasn't that expensive.’ I watched all of that stuff come up, stopped myself, and said, ‘Thank you! I love it.’ and smiled.THIS is a huge shift and taking those actions last week along with the mindset work, visualizing, and living into my future self is what made it happen. I feel so proud of myself!”Turn Up the Volume On Your ThoughtsWhat better way to block out the opinions of others and tune into your own extraordinary thoughts than with noise-canceling headphones?This sleek set by Bose is the gold standard and one of my daily staples.RSVP FOR THE ROYAL TREATMENT Valuing Your Own OpinionRecognizing the value of your own opinion is essential to elevating your self-image and creating the life of your dreams.If you’re ready to stop selling yourself short and start treating your opinions as the precious gift they are, then this episode is for you.LISTEN TO THE PODCAST// TheEDIT

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Listen to the Full Episode:In this episode of the School of Self-Image, host Tonya Leigh talks about the importance of being sold on oneself and emotional fluency. She challenges the listener to believe in their own value, worth, and capabilities. Tonya emphasizes the need to appreciate where we are now and not fight against it. She also shares about her current workshop, the Royal Treatment Workshop, and the positive feedback she has received from participants. The episode ends with a reminder to focus on where we can reach from where we are now.What You Will Discover with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: 0:03:13 Self-image and weight loss * 0:08:04 The Slim Self-Image * 0:10:13 Emotional fluency * 0:14:18 Primary emotional language * 0:17:35 Back to harmony with your self-image * 0:22:08 Your opinion matters the most * 0:26:37 Transitional emotions QuotesConnect with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: Join Now! https://schoolofselfimage.com/join* * *FREE Download: Wehttps://schoolofselfimage.com/self-image-manifesto/* * *Give yourself the Royal Treatment! Enroll now here: http://schoolofselfimage.com/royal/* * Website: *https://schoolofselfimage.com * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tonyaleigh * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TonyaLeighOfficial * TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thetonyaleigh * YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TonyaLeighOfficial DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:So I have a question for you. Are you sold on yourself? Meaning do you believe in your own value, your worth, what you're capable of, what's amazing about you? If not, what in the world? You need to listen to this episode because my goal is that you are a woman who is sold on yourself.Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.Hello, beautiful friends. We've been blessed with another week. Take that in. I saw this video on Instagram where this guy was talking about in 20 years, you're going to wish that you were in this exact spot, in this exact body with these exact people doing this exact thing. And I sat there and thought about that because so often we're resisting where we are right now. And I was like, but wait, 20 years from now, what if we look back and we're like, God, I wish I was there again. And it's just a reminder to appreciate where you are right now. Now, I know some of you may be thinking, but Tonya, I don't want to be here right now. And I get it. I've been in those moments too. And what I can offer you is that fighting where you are right now is not helping you get somewhere else. So from where you are now, where can you begin to reach? What can you begin to look for to help get your energy going in a different direction?This has been such a fabulous week. I'm in the middle of teaching the Royal Treatment Workshop. And for those of you who have joined us, we are having the best time, aren't we? It's so much fun. And I've had many of you reach out and tell me, "This is the best workshop I've ever done." And I've been getting that a lot. Every time I run a workshop, I'm hearing, "Oh my God, this is better than the last time you did it." And it's because I keep growing. It's because I'm expanding and I'm bringing that more expansive energy to the workshops. And so you all are watching me in real time change my self-image.So for me, it's such an honor to do this work and to support you all and to watch you create your after story, which is my mission. I want to help 5,000 women create their after stories, documented, proven that this method works and we are well on our way my friends. They're coming in every single day and it's just so much fun for me to witness women step into their after story all by changing their self-image. Self-image really is everything.Now, since I started the membership back in October of 2020, I've had many women come into the community with the extraordinary goal of losing weight. And the crazy thing is, within the membership, there are no weight loss focused classes. However, when my team and I were going through the after stories that were being submitted, we noticed this trend of many of them were of women losing weight in the membership. And I thought to myself, that is so fascinating because so many people think, "Oh, I need a diet. I need to join a weight loss course in order to lose weight."But we were seeing this trend of women losing weight by applying the material and changing their self-image. And the reason why is that you are always working subconsciously. You probably don't even realize you're doing it, but it's this subconscious mechanism that's always at work and it works to keep you living within harmony of your identity, your self-image. And this explains why it's so difficult for those people who are trying to lose weight, to actually lose it and keep it off. You can lose it, but if you don't change your identity, you put the weight back on.Now, some of you remember back in the day when I had one of my very popular programs called Slim, Chic and Savvy, and I was teaching this concept without understanding and having the language around it to know it was self-image. But the work that we were doing within that program was around changing your self-image to that of a slim, chic and savvy woman. And I retired that program. However, women have been asking me, not just asking, begging, "Please bring something like that back. We want support around losing weight with your unique method." And so I thought about bringing back Slim, Chic and Savvy because it's such a great program. However, I have grown so much since then as I was just mentioning, and I've learned so much more around self-image as it relates to weight loss even since that program.And so I've been thinking about what I could offer you that would really help you become a slim woman, not something that's going to help you lose weight because we all know, again, you can lose weight. You've probably done it 1,000 times. But something that help would help you be state of being a slim woman because when you are a slim woman, you are subconsciously going to work to create that result, to live in harmony when you change your self-image. And when I use the word slim, I know it can be triggering to some people. They're like, "Oh, Tonya, you're trying to tell people to be skinny." No, I'm not. I'm not skinny. I am, as my mother says, a healthy size. And that's the key word: healthy.And when I use the word slim, and the way I've always used it is that it is about letting go of the excess, letting go of what no longer serves you, letting go of what's weighing you down and holding you back. And from that, let's see what evolves because your body has this harmonious and set point place that it thrives. And that's what we want to find for you. I don't know what that is for you, but I know that if you want to find out for yourself, you're going to have to be willing to break up with who you've been in order to birth who you're becoming.So I've been thinking about the next evolution of what I could offer you around weight loss. And I use those two words very hesitantly because those are the two words that we actually want to get you away from. We want you to stop thinking that you have a weight problem so that you stop perpetuating that you have a weight problem. But for the sake of this podcast, we're just going to say to support you around weight loss. And so I was journaling and going through my creative process whenever I'm creating anything. And I started to think about all of the women within the membership who have lost weight using these principles. And it occurred to me that there has been some parts of the conversation that have been left out of the membership that could actually fast track women getting results in this area. And it's still following the same process within the membership, the self-image method, but applying it to being a slim woman.And so I am so excited about what we've come up with. It's called the Slim Self-Image, and it is an eight week program where we are going to use the self-image method, which I've talked about in a previous podcast, as well as focusing on the three pillars that we talk about nonstop within the membership. And I'm calling them your slim mindset, your slim surroundings, and your slim style, to birth the slim woman within you so that you can be done with the struggle that you may be going through if you're someone who deals with weight issues. And I'm excited to be teaching this alongside our community manager who, this is her wheelhouse. This is how she got started. She's lost I think 70 pounds and she was a weight loss coach before she came and worked for the School of Self-Image. And so we are going to be supporting the most extraordinary group of women in this process.Now you may be thinking, "Oh, Tanya, I want to do this. Sounds amazing. How do I sign up? Where?" I'm including this in the membership for annual members. So by joining the School of Self-Image and making a one year commitment, you get access to everything that's in the membership. The coaching, the classes, the community. You also get access to the Wealthy Woman, which is a course for annual members. You get access to Charm the Room, and now you're going to get access to the Slim Self-Image program that we're going to be running live. So you're going to have live support during these eight weeks together. So if you want to join us, what in the world, head over to schoolofselfimage.com/join and make sure you choose the annual option. And I'm excited to see you in the Slim Self-Image program.Okay, so now let's talk about today's topic, which I am so excited to talk about: emotions. I'm intrigued by them. They are creating our entire lives. They are woven into our self-image. So it's a topic that I am fascinated about. And this concept of emotional fluency came up for me when I was teaching a class not too long ago, and I thought I had made it up, but it turns out that it's a common term. And so when I went to get ready for this podcast and I started doing research, I'm like, oh, this is not just me. Other people have talked about emotional fluency before. But the way I was talking about it in the class is that we all are fluent in our language. So for some of you, your first language most likely is English if you listen to this podcast, but I know some of you speak other languages as your first language and English is your second language, and you may have two or three or four more languages that you know fluently. You're one of the gifted ones.Because I struggle in learning a new language. I have been trying to learn French for over a decade, and it's very difficult for me. And I share that because it's the same with emotional fluency. For many of us, it's difficult to learn to speak a language that we are not accustomed to, that isn't our first language. So to become emotionally fluent, you first need to understand what is an emotion and where does it come from? And I like to think of an emotion as a vibration that I can feel, I can sense in my body. Now, I use emotions and feelings interchangeably, even though you can separate them out, I just like simplicity. And so for me, it's like feelings and emotions. I use them, I interchange them. But for me, it's like this sensation in my body that I can feel.So anxiety, I usually feel it in my stomach. It's like very fluttering. Sometimes I feel it in my chest. Joy, I feel in my chest. It's very expansive. It's like big bubbles that are just opening up. So that's what an emotion is. It's a vibration that you can sense in your body.Now, where do emotions come from? And there are different schools of thought on this. Scientists have agreed that most emotions come from your thoughts, which is why two people can encounter a dog and have two very different reactions. Same dog, two different people. Why? Because of their thoughts about it. One person can feel absolute delight when they see a dog because they're thinking delightful thoughts. Another person can feel terror because they are thinking thoughts of terror. So the majority of our emotions come from our thinking. But I've also been thinking about these emotions or feelings that we have sometimes that we just can't explain. Has that ever happened to you? You wake up and you just feel a certain way and you're like, there's no logical reason as to why I'm feeling this way. And scientists have shown that it can be biochemical factors, it can be subconscious stored thoughts that you can't even access.But for the most part, I would say 95% of the time, you can trace your emotion to a thought. And I think that's a beautiful thing because then you can begin to ask yourself, why am I feeling so worried? Why am I feeling so afraid? Why am I feeling so insecure or sad? And you can find that thought and you can change it to feel something better. And that is how you become fluent in new emotions.Now, I want you to think of your first emotional language. What is your primary emotional language? And for most of us, it's going to be the language that we spoke as a child. So if you think about your childhood, what was the emotional language that was spoken in your home most often? Was it anger? Was it worry? Was it joy? Was it gratitude? Now, hopefully you had a mixture of emotions, not just one negative emotion, but usually there was a predominant emotion that ruled over a house. And that's usually the language that we picked up and we speak so fluently now. We don't even have to try to speak it. It's just the one that we go to. It is our go-to emotion. When I think about my primary emotion that I grew up with, it was fear. And secondary emotion was gratitude.So it was an interesting mix because I mean, there was so much love in my family, but in the religion that I grew up in, I was always afraid. I was always afraid of the second coming because that was something that was taught in my religion. And as a little girl, you're taught if you sin, Jesus is going to come back and you're going to be left behind. And I remember you all, my parents. One day I woke up, I was probably like seven or eight years old, and I woke up, it was a weekend and I couldn't find my parents, and I started panicking and freaking out. I remember running out into the yard to see if there were cars and wrecks and carnage because I thought, oh my goodness, the rapture has taken place and I have been left behind. And so I was always on edge of that kind of stuff. I remember having to watch films about it. It was pretty ingrained. And so I grew up and even as an adult, being afraid of the world, being afraid that something bad was going to happen.Now, I also had a lot of gratitude because I was also taught that emotion as a child. And so learning a new emotion was very uncomfortable. I wanted to feel calm, I wanted to feel confident, I wanted to feel at peace. And those emotions were so foreign. And what's interesting is they feel foreign in your body when you try to speak them. And that too makes sense from a scientific point of view because every emotion carries with it a chemical cocktail. And so when you have introduced that cocktail to your body over and over and over again, even though it doesn't serve you, even though it's uncomfortable, it's also very familiar to the body.And so when you try to introduce a new cocktail into the body, the body wants to reject it. The body's like, oh, this is unfamiliar, this thing called joy. We're not used to feeling this. And so the brain then gets involved and tries to get you back to harmony with your self-image. All comes back to self-image, my friends. And if your self-image is of a woman who worries or who is afraid, you keep thinking at that level, feeling at that level and creating evidence for that level. And you ingrain that self-image deeper and deeper into your beingness. And so you have to hire a language teacher and you have to practice these new languages that you want to speak fluently.Now, who should you hire? Where should you hire them? And I don't know that answer for you. Your language teacher could be a book, a podcast like this. Your language teacher could be a therapist. Your language teacher could be a coach. But I encourage you to find a language teacher who has struggled in becoming fluent because they're going to know where you get tripped up. They're going to know the tweaks and the workarounds. It's just like when I was learning French, I tried to learn from a native French speaker, and it was very difficult. I had a way more success with an English speaker who now spoke French fluently because she understood me speaking English as a first language and all of the trip ups that I was going to have and how to get through them.So I have found that you're better served by having a teacher who maybe speaks scarcity or used to speak scarcity, but now speaks wealth and abundance. Maybe the teacher used to speak worry or anger, but now speaks calm and confidence. And so finding your teacher is going to be so important if you want to become emotionally fluent in another emotional language.And then the second thing is you must practice, and it is going to be awkward, and you are going to fail, and it's going to feel like you're not getting anywhere, and you're going to want to go back and speak the language that is most familiar to you and the one that is easiest for you. And you can do that. But you know by doing that, you're never going to become fluent in the emotions that are going to help you create what you want. So the practice is understanding what you're feeling, going within to figure out why you're feeling that way, and then redirecting, turning towards what you want and thinking in the direction of that. And then feeling the discomfort of change, feeling the discomfort of letting go of an emotion that is so familiar to you but is no longer serving you.And so the way this works, I call it the Self-Image Cycle. You have a thought that creates a feeling, an emotion. And when you are fluent in a certain language, that thought is just usually by default. Something happens and your brain goes somewhere. Now, your brain may go to, I'm such a bad person. Another person's brain may go to, they're such a bad person, just depending on how you were raised and how you see the world. One may go to shame, one may go to anger. But you will have default thoughts that you just go to without even trying. And that creates that default emotion that you are accustomed to feeling. And you're going to think it's because of the outside world. But what I want you to understand is no, it's just an emotion that you're so fluent at speaking. And so you're always looking for reasons to feel that emotion because it's so familiar to you.And so you have the emotion and then that emotion causes you to go out there and create evidence for more of that. And so you begin to really cement the self-image into place. So the way to start shifting that is just to change your thought just a little bit. If you're used to feeling despair, which is one of the most constrictive emotions, maybe we reach for pessimism, which is a more transitional emotion. So going from a thought like the world is ending, everything is so messed up, there's no hope for me, like those kinds of thoughts. Maybe you could go to, maybe there's some good in the world, maybe it's possible that there is some hope for me. And even just that little bit of shift in your thinking helps to get you out of this language, this emotional language that is keeping you stuck in a self-image that doesn't serve you.And what I want to encourage you to do is you keep practicing this until one day you are speaking joy, confidence, abundance, gratitude, excitement, passion, love. And it's no longer something that you have to practice because you have practiced so much, you are now fluent. These kinds of emotions have become your primary first language. You have left the languages of the past behind, and now you are speaking the languages to help you create your future on purpose.Now, here's the thing. I just said, you left those languages behind, but that's not true. As I was saying that, I'm like, nope, that's not quite how it happens. So let me state that in a different way. It's not the language that you go to as your first language any longer. Because there are days you all where I still have anxiety and it feels familiar. Like I'm like, oh, I used to speak that so fluently. I don't speak it that much anymore. And so therefore it feels awkward and odd when it comes up. The same with overwhelm. That's an emotion I used to feel a lot, and I could speak that language better than anybody. I could teach that language I was so fluent in it, but I haven't practiced that emotion in so long that if it happens to come up, it feels very foreign now. I have to work to practice it. I'm like, whoa.But if I kept practicing it, if I let it take over, I could be back in that place in no time because it's in my subconscious and it's a language that I used to practice a lot. And then there are going to be languages that you're very conversational in, but you're not fluent yet and that's okay. A language that was really hard for me to pick up was abundance, and I was conversational for a long time in that one, and I still don't quite feel fluent in it. But I can definitely speak it and I speak it really well, but it's not where I go. And it makes sense because I grew up in a lot of scarcity. And so that's where my brain can take me easily.But I have been practicing abundance for a long time now. I've noticed that I'm more on the fluent side of things than I used to be, but it still takes a little bit of effort and that's okay. We're human. We're not here to be perfect. We're here to experience life. And the only way to experience life is to open yourself up to all of the emotions and learn from them and grow from them, and then become emotionally fluent so that you can choose your emotions on purpose, and you can speak them so that you can create a self-image that will allow you to create what it is that you want.So I'm curious, what is your current first emotional language? And all you have to do is just look at your life, look at your days, and what is the emotion that you experience most days? And what would you like it to be? What is the emotion you would love to speak? For me, my favorite emotion is love. I think it's the highest vibration. I love the way it feels in my body. I love what it produces. And so that is the language that I love speaking and practicing and being fluent in. But what is it for you? And maybe during this season in your life, it's something else. Maybe you're wanting just a transitional emotion. You're like, "Tonya, I can't get to love yet. I'm so full of anger." I get it. What can we get to? Maybe remorse, maybe guilt, maybe impatience, maybe frustration? We just want to move in the direction of the more expansive emotions.Okay, my friends, I love you. I hope you have the most beautiful and awe-inspiring week. And don't forget, the School of Self-Image membership is open right now for a short time. So you can go to schoolofselfimage.com/join. And remember, if you join as an annual member, you'll be able to participate in the Slim Self-Image Program that's coming up, and it would be an honor to be your emotional language teacher. So come on, what in the world? Let's do this. Have a gorgeous week. Cheers.Hey, have you grabbed your free copy of the School of Self-Image Manifesto? If not, what in the world? Head over to schoolofselfimage.com/manifesto and get a copy that teaches you how to think and show up in the areas of mindset, style, and surroundings so that you can transform your self-image.Enjoy the Show? Don't miss another episode!Pick your favorite platform below:The Self-Image Manifesto

You’re Invited To Live An Extraordinary Life!

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Shrinking. Hiding. Sneaking. Apologizing.

These words embody the way I used to move through the world.

Someone would bump into me, and I’d say “I’m so sorry.” TO THEM.

I’d take the seat that no one wanted.
I’d hide in the back of the room.
I’d erase myself out of the picture as much as possible.

I was living in low-maintenance mode, telling myself that I was “just” a sweet Southern woman who never asked for much because I didn’t need much.

But deep down, I wanted more for myself. Much more.

Today, I have gotten to a place where I hold my needs in the highest regard. I love to care for myself – not from a place of arrogance but because when I look in the mirror, I see a woman who matters.

And you matter too.

Prioritizing your own self-care is never easy. It requires courage to declare your worth to yourself and the world, which is exactly what this edition of The Edit is all about. It’s The Courageous Issue.

I know you have it in you to give yourself permission to be, do, and have everything you’ve ever wanted, and I’m here to help you every step of the way.

May I suggest my online workshop, The Royal Treatment, as your very next step? Over the course of 5 days, in just about one hour per day, I’ll show you how to start consistently taking exquisite care of yourself, as you learn to think and act in alignment with the Queen within.

It’s just $37 - or completely free if you’re a member of the School of Self-Image.

We start on Monday, which means doors are closing soon. I hope to see you inside!

Love,

RSVP FOR THE ROYAL TREATMENTA Queen takes up space.Do you want a BIG life? As your fellow Queen, I have a feeling you do.

Well, a BIG life requires that you take up BIG space.

This means walking into the room with your shoulders back and head up.

It means not apologizing for something you didn’t do.

It’s asking for what you want.

It means inconveniencing others from time to time.

It means dressing to be seen - whether that’s a chic red lipstick or a brightly colored dress or a bold silhouette.

It may mean going LIVE on Instagram to tell the world about who you are and why you’re here.

What it will never mean is a smaller you. An apologetic you. A defeated you.

That BIG life you dream about? It’s right there in front of you. Take up all the space you need to make it your own.

Loving Yourself Fullywith Tracey Braxton-Beale“I’ve been a member of SOSI since January 2022. At first, I did not think I mattered within this program or anywhere else. But, I’m realizing I do matter!

I recently took my first solo trip in 16 years. I went to the West Coast without my husband! (We typically do everything together.) I didn’t know what to do with myself at first but I figured it out real quick. It was the trip I really did not know I needed for such a long time. I sense a shift in how I treat myself.

As a person who didn’t see the point in ‘dressing up’ before going out, each time I head out now, I’m thinking intentionally about the way I look. The other day, I decided to put on some cute jewelry (which I never, ever do because usually I just don’t feel pretty enough) and even put a clip in my hair. I felt so good about myself (and my husband took notice and said I looked nice, like a summer goddess). But the thing is, I did it all for me!

Tonya gave us the suggestion to sit in front of a mirror and have a talk with ourselves. I woke up this morning and did just that! I thanked my body for getting me through my 52 years of living. I apologized for putting myself in harm's way, for going through negative experiences, and for seeking love outside of myself first. I told myself ‘I am open to loving myself fully (mistakes and all).’

I’m also grateful for the travel I’ve been able to do and the many firsts I’ve accomplished. Case in point, this fun photo shoot that I decided to gift myself with while visiting Portland. Remember to value your own self and make yourself a priority.”

Embrace Your Fears with The Royal TreatmentWhat’s really getting in the way of feeling your best every day? Usually, a lack of action stems from fear. Maybe it’s the fear of worrying about what others will think, or the fear of failing again.

When I look at the Queens in my own life, and so many Queens throughout history, the one trait they all share is courage. Courage doesn’t always feel good. It’s rarely comfortable - but you have to face that discomfort if you want anything that’s outside of your comfort zone (which is almost everything.)

In The Royal Treatment, I’ll help you find the grit and gumption to truly embody your Queen energy. Registration is open for a few more days. Will you join me?

RSVP FOR THE ROYAL TREATMENT The Courage to Be SeenIn this week’s episode, we dive into the extraordinary power – and the inevitable fear - of showing up in the world as your authentic self, imperfections and all. You won’t want to miss this!LISTEN TO THE PODCAST// TheEDIT

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“I’ll do it tomorrow.”

That one phrase has created more drama in my life than all the past men and mothers-in-law combined.

Saying “I’ll do it tomorrow” meant I was constantly letting myself down.

I’d promise myself I would start a new eating plan tomorrow… I’d face my bank account… tomorrow. I’d return that phone call… tomorrow.

“I’ll do it tomorrow” led to seventy extra pounds, a career I didn’t love, and an unfulfilling love life.

Long story short? All those “tomorrows” had added up.

To break the cycle, I had two options:

Stop lying to myself and telling myself I would do things that I KNEW I wouldn’t.

OR …

Do the things.

I chose to do both. So I started a calendar. Not for grocery shopping and cleaning the house, but for my most audacious goals.

I broke each goal down into individual tasks, scheduled them into my calendar, and then - here’s the really crazy part - did them when I said I would. Gasp!

The commitments in my calendar were as good as gold. And guess what? One by one, my dreams came true - and I’m just getting started.

What if you started a calendar of dreams, Laura? What if you actually stuck to it? What if your word - to yourself - was truly as good as gold?

I can’t think of a better place to start than by investing in your own exquisite self-care plan - a Royal Treatment Plan, if you will. My 5-day online workshop, The Royal Treatment, will teach you how to move through the world as a Queen. And it’s yours for $37 (or free, if you’re a member of the School of Self-Image).

A Queen never lets herself down. Her word to herself is as good as gold. You can be that, Laura. Let’s go there together.

The Royal Treatment starts in less than 2 weeks. Don’t miss it!

RSVP FOR THE ROYAL TREATMENTLove,

Let Your Word to Yourself Be as Good as Gold.My daughter is the most important person in the world to me. I would never make a promise to her unless I knew for sure I could make it happen.

In fact, I rarely break my promises to anyone, so why did I repeatedly do that to myself - for decades?

Simply because I believed, “I am a woman who breaks promises to herself.”

No more. Let’s be women who honor our commitments. Let’s be women who honor ourselves.

If you want to stop letting yourself down, don’t make promises you have no plans to keep. It’s better to make no promises at all.

On the other hand, when you’ve carefully considered what you want to do and you’re sure you’re ready to commit to it, consider that promise a signed contract with yourself. When you do, the shifts in your life will be extraordinary. That’s my promise to you.

Thinking Differentwith Carie Mercier Lafond“I am enjoying embracing my Queen energy. Living like a Queen requires that I think with purpose and that I pay attention to what I allow in my mental, physical, and spiritual space.

I am the one who decides that I am worth it and in charge. I choose to wear my hair in its natural state, even in the face of opposition from my mum and others. And I choose to be dressed in clothes that make me feel amazing.

When I found this blouse I had to buy it. It says ‘Think Different.’ A reminder to focus on my own way of seeing life and curating my thoughts.”

A Cape That’s Got Your BackAs a woman whose word is as good as gold, you’re practicing having your own back - like being your own best friend. I think your wardrobe can be like a bestie, too. You’ve got those pieces that never let you down.

A cape is one of those for me. It’s practically impossible to feel unpolished in a cape. They give you a sense of invincibility, like “I can (and will) accomplish whatever I set my mind to.” It’s no wonder royals have historically worn capes during their coronation ceremonies.

Here’s a classic version from Burberry which I’m loving right now.

GET THE CAPEThe Crown Jewels of Queen EnergyIn today’s episode, we cover the 3 essential things you must start doing to be a Queen in your own life. It’s an incredibly empowering approach, and I’m excited to share it with you!

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST// TheEDIT

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Listen to the Full Episode:In this episode of the School of Self-Image podcast, host Tonya Leigh discusses the value of personal opinions. She starts by encouraging listeners to join the School of Self-Image membership program. She then mentions her own obsessions, including pickleball and the world of style. Tonya talks about how many of us struggle with valuing our own opinions and conforming to society's expectations. She shares tips for building confidence and believing in our own opinions, including understanding our values and setting boundaries. Tonya reminds listeners that their opinions matter and encourages them to speak up and share their unique perspectives with the world.What You Will Discover with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: 0:02:06 Lessons from building a house * 0:03:48 Valuing your own opinions * 0:04:38 Women wanting to be saved * 0:09:28 Being mentally lazy * 0:13:39 Do this one thing right now * 0:16:59 Your opinion matters the most QuotesConnect with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: FREE Download: https://schoolofselfimage.com/self-image-manifesto/* * *Give yourself the Royal Treatment! Enroll here now: http://schoolofselfimage.com/royal/* * Website: *https://schoolofselfimage.com/ * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tonyaleigh/... * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TonyaLeighOf... * TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lifecoachschool * YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TonyaLeighOfficial DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:Did you hear, the School of Self-Image membership is open for enrollment. If you're not in there, what in the world? Come and join us. It is my very strong opinion that this is the best membership on the planet, and we would love to have. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/join and get in there. And speaking of opinions, do you value your own? Because that's what we're talking about in today's episode, so let's dive in.Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.Hello my beautiful friends. How's everybody doing? How are you feeling? Tell me something good. I ask my family that every day, I'm like, "Tell me something good, I want to hear what's good in your world." I just spent the last hour on Pinterest and I came up out of that hole wondering, where did that time go? Does that ever happen to you? You go on there to look for one thing and next thing you know you are looking at all the things. But right now, it's so interesting, I am dealing with three obsessions. And when I become interested in something, it's not just a slight interest, it is an obsession, I cannot stop thinking about it, I want to research it, I want to learn everything about it. And for me right now, obviously one of them is pickleball. If you look at my Instagram feed, it's all pickleball videos, and I sit there and just watch them, trying to learn through Instagram.And then the other obsession that's now showing up on my Instagram feed is, well this one I've always been interested in, but because I'm teaching the style experience I'm more interested than usual in the world of style, and so lots of style stuff on my Instagram. And then because I'm building a house I have been diving deep into the world of interior design, and you all, I cannot get enough. I am loving learning all the things about color and skill, and it's very similar to styling yourself, it's just taking a lot of those same principles and applying them to your home. But I've just been looking at interior design ideas on Pinterest literally for an hour. I'm going to have to schedule myself so that I only have certain days that I'm allowed to work on my house stuff because it's so much fun. And it's the first time I've had my own house, so of course I am just obsessed, and I'm so excited to share this journey with you all, it's going to be fun.Now, one of the things that I have noticed, because I've hired an interior designer and I'm working with my builder, is that I am being asked to make a lot of decisions. I am being required to have an opinion about what I want and what I like. And I was thinking the other day when they were coming at me and they were wanting the answer to 10 different things, I remember a time in my life where my response would've been, "I don't know, tell me what you think." Does that sound familiar to some of y'all? "I don't know what color I should paint my walls, what do you think I should do? I don't know what kind of doors or windows that I want, what do you think? What do you think I should do? What should I pick?"And listen you all, I see this so often with women especially. I don't see this as much with men, men seem to have an opinion about everything, and that's not a bad thing. But what breaks my heart is when we, as women, don't value our own opinion, and we value others' opinion way more than our own. And that affects us in so many ways, it keeps us small, it keeps us dependent on other people, and it really does keep us from living our best lives. Because to live your best life you have to be willing to know what you want, you must know what you value, and you must have an opinion about the world, and how you want your world to look and feel.I see this a lot in entrepreneurship as well, I see women starting their businesses and they want to be saved, they want someone to tell them what to do. They want the blueprint, the formula, they want the step by step play of how to build a successful business and what I can tell you is that that does not exist. Successful businesses are built off of a lot of failures, and those failures came from having an opinion, trying something out, and it not working, but keeping going until you stumbled upon what works. And so I was thinking about why is it that we don't value our own opinion? Why is it that we ask other people their opinion and value it over our own? And I'm really curious what you think, what is your opinion about this? You can find me on Instagram and let me know and let's have a conversation about it.But the first thing that came to me, and I was thinking about the years where I did this, because this was a big pattern for me, "I don't know, what do you think? What should I order? What should I wear? Where should I go? What should I name my business? What should I name my program? What should I charge?" Right? I went through this whole same process, and it just kept me super small, it did not lead to a favorable outcome.So one of the reasons why I think we do it is because we're afraid of making a mistake. That's a big one. So let me find someone that I think has done it well and let me ask them what they think I should do. And the problem with that is listen, I'm all about learning from others and asking questions and getting advice, but never, never at the expense of discounting what you think, of discounting your own opinion. And the thing is, because something worked for someone else does not mean that it's going to work for you.There's this thing called energy involved, and I believe in energy more than strategy, and one way to increase your energy, to be more high vibe, is to have strong opinions and stick by them. But if you're so afraid of making a mistake you'll never do that. So you have to make peace with the fact that you're going to make mistakes, failure is part of this process, and failure, I think, is a beautiful thing. We have to change our relationship with failure in order to embrace it, because the moment you embrace failure, that's when you are opening yourself up for success.The other reason why I think we don't value our own opinion is because we don't trust ourselves, and trust is something that you have to create with yourself. When you think about how many times we tell ourselves that we're going to do something, and then we don't do it. How many times we break commitments to ourselves. And so it's hard to value the opinion of someone you don't trust. So to fix that one, start keeping your promises to yourself. Make tiny commitments and follow through on them, and prove to yourself that you are trustworthy to you.The other reason why I think maybe people abdicate their power and value other people's opinion more than their own is that they get to blame others if it doesn't work out. Have you ever known someone that does that? They come to you and they ask you what they should do, and you give them your opinion and then they do it, and then it doesn't work out and then they blame you. "You told me this is going to work, you told me this was how to do it, you told me to leave, and that wasn't the answer."I had that happen to me one time and I was so taken back by it. I was like, "Listen, you were just asking for my opinion, now you're blaming me because you did it and it didn't work?" This was a friend, and that's why as a coach you don't tell people what to do, you help them to discover their truth. Because we don't like to be accountable sometimes, and it's so much easier to blame others like, "Hey listen, I just did what Steve told me to do, it didn't work out, Steve's fault, I would've done it this way." I'm like, "Why didn't you do it that way instead of asking Steve and doing what Steve told you to do?"And then the final reason, sadly, that I think we do this is that we've become mentally lazy. Figuring out your opinion takes time, it takes reflection and introspection, and it might even take research to figure out, what is my opinion on certain things? What kind of paint color do I want? What style of home do I want? Those kinds of questions require that I set aside time to really think about, let's just take, for example my home that I'm building, but to think about what it is that I want this home to express and to feel and to embody, and that's some deep work. It is so much easier to turn to someone and say, "Hey, do you think I need a colonial home? That's what you see? Okay, let's do it." And then you get in the home and you're like, oh, this doesn't feel right, this doesn't match my soul. And you can begin to see why, because you didn't do that soul-searching and you chose the easy path.And so in order to start expressing your opinion, you have to spend time figuring out, what is my opinion? And the reason why I think it's hard for women to do this is that our opinion probably growing up for a lot of us wasn't really encouraged or valued. We were told to be quiet and to listen to what everybody else says, and we began to just be a sponge for everybody else's opinions without being encouraged to come up with our own. And that is exactly why when clients come to me and they'll ask me a question I will be like, "I don't know, you tell me, what do you think?" And it forces them to come up with an answer, it forces them to have an opinion.If you want to value your own opinion you have to start formulating one and expressing it, and the best way to do this is to begin to answer your own questions first. What should I wear? What should I order? What should I name my business? How much should I charge? Should I go on a date with this guy? Start answering those questions first, before you ask anyone else, what is your answer to that? Now that does not mean that you don't run your answer by someone, or even ask them their opinion, but you never do it without answering it for yourself first.The second thing I encourage you to do is to practice expressing your opinion, especially if you are someone who usually is in the back of the room, and you stay small and you stay quiet and it's really uncomfortable to express your opinion, this is your work, your opinion matters in the world, and it matters more than anything to yourself. You have to show yourself that you are worth it, you have to show yourself that you matter, and as long as you are holding your opinion back and not expressing it, you keep confirming a self-image that doesn't serve you. You keep confirming that you don't matter, your opinion doesn't matter, no one listens to you.But I want you to see that you're the one that's creating that cycle, and the best way to break that cycle is to begin to speak up, begin to express yourself, begin to value your own opinion. Because again, it's unique to you, it comes from your unique circumstances, your values, your perspective on the world, your loves, your dislikes, it's like a fingerprint to you. So if you're so busy just soaking up everybody else's opinion, you're not getting to the truth of you, and you're not allowing us to see that.One of the things that I want you to do, and if you're at home right now you can do it, don't do it if you're driving, but take out a piece of paper, or your journal, or you can even pull out your phone and open up to the note section, and I want you to come up with three strong opinions that you have and just write them down. This is the first step to valuing your own opinion, is to begin to be curious and figure out what are my opinions, because you have them.For me, one of my strong opinions that sometimes people disagree with is that what you wear matters, it matters a lot. And people will tell me, "Oh no, Tanya, it's what's in your heart that matters," and I'm not going to argue with that one, obviously. But when you're standing across the room from someone, I can't see your heart, I see what's on your body, and it matters. Now, that's my opinion, and some people will disagree, and that's okay. They have strong opinions, and I respect that. But from my experience in my life, this is an opinion that I hold strongly.Another opinion that I have is that coaching is one of the best investments you'll ever make in yourself. I think it's more powerful than investing in your 401(k), and people have argued with that. They're like, "Obviously you would say that, you're a coach." No, I say that, and I am a coach, because I believe that to be true, it's changed my life, and now I get to support other women using these tools.I also have a very strong opinion that sometimes the best way to change yourself is to change your environment. Now you may hear that and think, yeah, obviously Tanya. But there are people who will argue that you shouldn't change your environment, you shouldn't change your circumstance, you should figure out how to be happy where you are, and there is some truth to that. But as someone who has changed my environment a lot and I've seen the result of that, I do deeply, deeply believe that sometimes moving to a new city, getting out of the relationship, getting into the relationship, changing jobs, can be one of the best gifts that you give yourself if, and this is big if, if you are doing it for the sole purpose of giving yourself a shot at thinking better thoughts. That's the only reason. If you're doing it thinking that where you are is the reason why you feel so bad, then you're probably just going to recreate it in the next place, because you're blaming the environment. But if you're doing it knowing if I place myself in this up-leveled, high vibe environment, it is going to be so much easier for me to think better thoughts.And so those are three strong opinions that I have that people have been upset with me over. But these are opinions that I'm willing to fight for, and I want you to figure out what those are. But then there's just the little opinions about what should I name my program? I don't know, you tell me. Come up with a name, test it, see if it works, see if people like it. If not, come up with another one. And that's the kind of stuff that you can begin doing in your daily life.And that leads me to the third thing that I encourage you to try so that you can start to value your own opinion. In order to value your own opinion you must make decisions. No more indecision, no more asking other people what you should do, and begin to decide for yourself. What do you want to order? You decide. Where do you want to go to eat? You decide. Where do you want to go on vacation? Decide. Begin to get in touch with your unique opinion, what you want, what you don't want, and value it.We're going to be talking about queen energy over the course of the next week, we're actually right now in the middle of the royal treatment, and so that's all about living in that queen energy. And one thing that a queen doesn't do is she doesn't abdicate her power. She doesn't put other people on a pedestal where she looks at them and thinks, oh, their opinion must be better than mine so let me ask them, and devaluing herself in the process. I want us all to see each other equally. No one's better than or less than, and we all have different opinions. And again, this does not mean that you don't come to someone like me who's been in business for a long time and say, "Hey, here's what I'm thinking about doing, here's what I've decided, what do you think? Do you see any holes in my plan? Do you see any red flags?" That's very different. Presenting to me what you've already decided, what your opinions already are, is very different than saying, "Hey, I don't know what to do, tell me what you think."That's what I want you all to practice, coming up with your own ideas, your own opinions, and then presenting them and letting people support you. But don't put me or anyone else on a pedestal and thinking that we know what's best for you. I'm over here trying to figure out what's best for me, and sometimes that is challenging. How am I supposed to know what's best for you and have an opinion about your life? Now trust me, everybody's going to have an opinion about how you should live, but your opinion matters the most, don't give that away. Let other people support it, because sometimes their opinions can be a little off, and so having people around you that's like, "I don't know about that opinion, there's some holes in that logic," I think is a beautiful thing, but at least you have the courage to have your own opinion.So what is your opinion? Come up with three strong ones, and I would love to hear them. Come find me on Instagram @TonyaLeigh, share them with me, and have a beautiful week, my friends. I love you, and I will see you on the next episode. Cheers.Hey, have you grabbed your free copy of the School of Self-Image Manifesto? If not, what in the world? Head over to schoolofselfimage.com/manifesto and get a copy that teaches you how to think and show up in the areas of mindset, style, and surroundings so that you can transform your self-image.Enjoy the Show? Don't miss another episode!Pick your favorite platform below:The Self-Image Manifesto

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Listen to the Full Episode:Tonya Leigh is a master life coach and the host of the School of Self-Image podcast. In this episode, she is discussing the importance of having the courage to be seen. Courage is an important quality to cultivate in order to be successful in life. This is why self-image work is so important. It involves seeing yourself as worthy, capable and deserving, and then having the courage to back this up with action. This is why the School of Self-Image is offering a five day workshop, where participants will learn valuable things and will be taught in a new way. It's a great opportunity to bring friends, family and confidants along. During the episode, Ambrose Red Moon's quote about courage is discussed, which states that courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. This is a useful reminder when it comes to overcoming the fear of being seen, which is a common fear for many people.In this conversation, Tonya discusses the fear of being seen and the reasons why people may be afraid of this. The fear of judgment, rejection, and failure, as well as cultural norms and trauma that may have been experienced when being seen. Tonya also talks about how the majority of the world is actually rooting for people to be seen, and encourages them to take up space and express themselves. The key takeaway from this conversation is that although it may be scary to be seen, it is worth it to live a full, authentic and bold life.What You Will Discover with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: 0:00:00 Stepping Into Your Queen Energy * 0:01:50 Overcoming the Fear of Being Seen * 0:04:27 Self-Discovery and Awareness * 0:06:12 Overcoming Fear and Embracing Your Authentic Self * 0:13:23 Reflections on Courage and Self-Judgment * 0:15:48 Fear of Being Judged: How to Embrace Courage and Reach Extraordinary Goals" * 0:17:39 A Challenge for the Week QuotesConnect with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: FREE Download: Self-Image Manifesto* * *Give yourself the Royal Treatment! Enroll now.* * Website: *https://schoolofselfimage.com/ * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tonyaleigh/... * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TonyaLeighOf... * TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lifecoachschool * YouTube:@tonyaleighofficial DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:Do you let people see you? Really see you? Hear your unique opinions, show up in a way that feels truly in alignment with who you are, to express yourself in your unique way. Or do you hide because you're afraid? This episode is all about the courage to be seen. So, let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello, and good morning, my gorgeous friends. I'm recording this at 7:00 in the morning, having my cup of coffee, and I'm excited to talk about today's topic. I love recording podcasts in the morning. It's very strange because I often say I dislike working in the morning, but podcasting is different. I don't know if it's because my brain is fresh or I have a space to enjoy, think, and share, but mornings are when I like to podcast jam. So here we are. I am getting ready for our upcoming Royal Treatment workshop. This is a five-day workshop where I'm going to be sharing five specific things that you can do to step into your queen energy and to treat yourself like a queen. And here's why this is so important, the world really does treat you the way you treat yourself because it's what you will allow, it's what you will look for, it's what you will create.

This is why self-image work is so important. When you see yourself as worthy, when you see yourself as a queen, when you see yourself as deserving, and then you back that up with action, crazy miracles start to happen in your life. So we are going to be starting that workshop next week, five days. And even if you cannot attend live, you will have access to the replays for life and you're going to learn some super valuable things. And I'm going to be teaching it in a way I've never taught it before. So come and join us. Bring your friends, bring your mama, bring your sisters, bring your friends, do it together. We actually have a lot of women who do that. They recruit their closest friends and they'll go through this experience together. But I would love to see you in the workshop. So you can head to schoolofselfimage.com/royal.

Okay, so let's dive into today's episode. And I want to start by you visualizing yourself standing in your life as a queen. And I want you to notice the energy that you are embodying as you visualize this. I'm going to guess that you do not see yourself hiding, shrinking, and running. Instead, you are standing in the fullness of who you are unapologetically and allowing others to see you in that fullness of who you are. And that's what I want to talk about in today's episode, the courage to be seen. There's a really great quote about courage by Ambrose Redmoon, where he says, "Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear." And I want you to hang on to this quote as I talk about overcoming the fear of being seen if this is something that you struggle with.

And it's a very common fear for a lot of the women that I work with. In fact, right now, I'm running the Style Experience, which is for women who are ready to step into their most stylish lives. And it's a lot of deep work. It's not just us putting outfits together. It's a lot of self-discovery and awareness and overcoming fear. And one of the common fears that I see when women start to dress differently is that they're so afraid of getting attention because their entire lives they've dressed to avoid that attention because attention is scary, or at least that's what their brain tells them. And rightfully so. I was thinking about why we are so afraid to be seen. And when I talk about being seen, it's not just being on stage or recording a podcast and publishing it or putting your blog into the world or going live on Facebook.

I'm talking about being seen for who you are. Have you ever had that person in your life who just sees you? You know that they see who you really are, and there's so much love and celebration and acceptance of that. It's a beautiful thing, which is why if you ever find someone who sees you, there's such a connection. I'll never forget when I was in college, I had a professor, Mr. Mize, Dr. Mize. He was an English professor, and he was one of the first people that I felt saw me. He could see my potential, he could see my gifts, he could see my strengths. He could also see my weaknesses, and he didn't hold them against me. And it was such a beautiful bond because he was really looking at the real me, the me without the mask, the me of not trying to people please or be a good girl.

He just saw Tonya for who she really was. And that is scary for a lot of people, which is why a lot of people wear a mask. They don't want to be seen. They're afraid. And why is that? Well, obviously, the first one is that people are afraid of judgment. If you are seen, you are going to be judged. People are going to criticize you and maybe think less of you. And listen, this is going to happen and it's happening no matter what. So you can either judge for being seen or you can be judged for hiding, but people are going to see you eventually in the world unless you are literally a hermit and you never leave your house. So, what I tell myself is, "Why not be judged for living my fullest, boldest, and most unapologetic life?" If I'm going to be judged anyway, I would rather be judged for that. The other fear that we have is the fear of being rejected. So if people see me, they may reject me, and that too can happen.

Are you willing to be rejected to live a full, authentic, and big life? The fear of failure, we're so afraid that people might see us fail, but have you ever noticed that the stories we love the most, the people that we connect with are the heroes and the heroines, the ones who have failed and failed and failed and then they finally succeed and we're like, "Yes." Those are the people we're rooting for. Can you imagine going to a movie and the entire movie is just about how a guy woke up one day and he was so successful and he just kept being more successful and he never had any obstacles and his life was perfect? We would be bored out of our minds. We would not relate to the character. We wouldn't want to probably hang out with that character. And yet, that's who a lot of us are trying to be, even though deep down, we don't want to be like that. It's so crazy to me.

The other reason why you may be afraid of being seen is because of cultural norms. There are cultures where you are raised to not be seen. There are cultures where you are told to be quiet, "Don't make a fuss, don't make noise. Just sit there and be pretty, or sit there and obey." So it becomes ingrained in us. So as adults, we're afraid to be seen because as children, the way we survived was to not be seen. So it makes complete sense. And then there's the trauma. Maybe you experienced trauma when you put yourself out into the world. I'll never forget after a pageant that I was in, I got beat up by a group of girls and I never got onto a stage again until as an adult. That was so traumatic to me. I was like, "I don't want to expose myself to this anymore. If this is what happens when you're seen and you put yourself out there, then I want no part of this."

So I had to overcome a lot of fear. Literally, I was like, "People are going to come and beat me up." I can see it now at SOSI LIVE. I get off-stage and all y'all come backstage and give me a good beating. But the truth is, deep down, and I want you all to really hear me on this, the majority of the world is rooting for you. This is a belief that has been backed up by studies, and it's also a belief that has helped me overcome my fear. The majority of the world is rooting for me. Now, I don't tell myself the whole world is rooting for me because I know that's not true and I don't want to set myself up for a lot of cognitive dissonance.

Now, I could say that and I could choose to believe it, but my experience has been, and the way the world is set up, is that's not true. There are people out there who don't want to see you win. There are people out there who will judge you, who will reject you, who will gossip about you, but the majority of people, the ones who really matter, want to see you, they want to hear from you, they want to learn from you, they want to be in your presence, they want to see you win, they want to see you, which means you must stop hiding, which means you must stop shrinking into the background of your own life. This means you must express your opinion. You must put on the dress or wear the lipstick. It means you must get up on stage, grab the mic, publish the book, ask for what you want, take up space, let people's gaze fixate upon you because you deserve to be seen 100%, period. I'm not arguing with you about this.

So now what? How do we actually do this? This is tough work because it brings up a lot of our fears. It's so much easier to sit at home and judge ourselves than to get out into the world and be judged by others, which is going to lead to your most incredible life. A big life requires that you feel big emotions. So, this means that the courage to be seen is not about not fearing it because let's face it, if you've been fearing being seen for years, maybe even decades, it's not going to go away overnight and it may be something that you carry with you for a long time. However, as the quote said, "Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than the fear." Is what you want, what you desire more important than the fear?

And this is why knowing your why is so important. Why you want what you want is your fuel to creating it, and it has to be more important and bigger than the fear. If not, you will give into the fear every single time. Every time I get up on stage to speak, I am nervous. Literally, I'm like, "Why are we doing this?" My body especially is screaming, "Why are we doing this? This is so dumb." We are uncomfortable. Every cell in this body is vibrating at a very fast pace. I do not like this feeling, but my why is big enough because I look out and I realize I want to be an example that we can do amazing things even if we're afraid. I want to share this work with as many people as possible. And when it comes to my life events, I love getting everyone together. And that requires that I get up on stage and talk and share and teach.

So it's worth it to me. I'm willing to feel that fear and that discomfort, and I'm willing to be seen because my why is bigger than my fear. But then I think about it, what I'm really fearing is my own judgment, which is crazy. And that's why we are often afraid to be seen is that we are projecting our thoughts onto other people. How many times have you done something and then after the fact you're like, "That was awful"? And then you have people come up to you telling you, "Oh my God, that was the best thing. I loved that talk. I loved that class." That has happened to me so many times where I will hang up from a call, a class I've taught and I'm like, "Ugh, that was terrible." And I assume that the whole world thinks it's terrible when, in fact, it's just my little scared brain trying to convince me that it's not safe to do that again.

Now, I'm very stubborn and my stubbornness has gotten me to where I am because I just ignore my brain, I'm like, "We're going to do this over and over again." But then after the fact, people will come up to me and they'll tell me, "That class changed my life. That was so good, thank you." So I've realized through the courage to be seen that what we are most afraid of is our own judgment of ourselves. And here's the good news with that, you have control over that. You may not be able to manage everybody else's judgments, but you can certainly manage your own. So when I have the courage to be seen, I am always so proud of myself. Even when my little brain chirps in and was like, "Oh, that wasn't good," I'm like, "Listen, you go. I am so impressed by you. I am so proud of you. You keep showing up. You keep sharing. What you have to say is important. You're important, you matter."

And that kind of self-talk has given me the courage to show up time and time again, even when I fail, even when I'm openly criticized, even when I'm scared, I just keep showing up. Now, one thing that I want to speak to specifically is the fear of people judging you openly online. I've been coaching quite a few of my friends who are entrepreneurs, and this has been coming up a lot. And what I told them, I'm like, "Listen, I want you to think about this, you have the courage to put yourself out there and they're hiding behind their computer." Because have you noticed it's very rare for someone to give you their real name and berate you? A lot of them have accounts where you can't find out who they are. They have fake names. They're hiding and then judging you for being seen. The irony in that.

So who would you rather be like? Would you rather be like the person who's on stage giving it their all or the person up in the stands criticizing? I'll be on the stage, on the field, in the game anytime because those are the people who are living life to the fullest. Those are the people who are reaching extraordinary goals and failing along the way. Those are the people who are experiencing the amazingness of life, even in the fear. So I'm going to challenge each of you this week, do something to be seen with the fear because it's not going away, so bring it along with you. But have your own back because that's what queens do. We're not going to put ourselves out there and be seen and then judge ourselves and beat ourselves up.

No, we're going to put ourselves out there and be seen and have our own back and be proud of ourselves and continue to show up so that we can offer our value to the world. Because every single one of you listening to this, you have something to offer your family, your community, and the world at large. So stop hiding. Have the courage to be seen, my friends. Have a beautiful week, and once again, I'd love to see you in the Royal Treatment workshop. We start next week, so head over to schoolofselfimage.com/royal and I will see you, hopefully, on Monday. And if not, I'll see you on the next episode. Cheers.

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What does it mean to be a Queen?

Is it wealth and curtsies and a regal wave? Or is it something much deeper …

From one Queen to another, it all starts with choosing to treat ourselves like Queens. Our needs aren’t up for negotiation. Our desires don’t require validation.

And while I live this way now, I didn’t always feel like a Queen deep down. I was just really good at pretending. Putting on a happy face even when I was crying inside. Or saying I was okay when I was really…not.

I was living a double life, and it was exhausting. My public image (how others saw me) didn’t match my self-image (how I saw myself).

When I finally decided to stop pretending and start taking care of the way I felt inside, everything changed.

When you show your true self to the world - this is when you embody the iconic leadership of a Queen. I call it Queen energy. You become invincible. No one can touch you because you’re aligned with yourself.

You don’t need validation, and you certainly don’t need permission. And that’s the inspiration for this edition of The Edit - The Invincible Issue.

If you’re ready to claim your crown, keep reading.

And make sure to register for my special virtual workshop:

The Royal Treatment - April 17 - 21

During this luxe online event, I’ll show you how to start seeing (and treating) yourself like a Queen, step-by-step, in a way that works for you.

Because every queen is one-of-a-kind - a royal masterpiece. Are you ready to crown yourself?

RSVP FOR THE ROYAL TREATMENTLove,

A self-defined woman is invincible.In a world that subjects women to all kinds of expectations, living life on your own terms can feel scary.

But here’s a secret. When you have the audacity to create your own rules, to define yourself on your terms, life actually gets so much easier.

You’re no longer spending precious energy censoring yourself, or trying to please others. You’re not hiding anything. There’s nothing to protect. And that’s when you become invincible, beholden to no one but yourself.

Wealthy, Stylish, and So In Lovewith Tanetha Jamay“I first learned about ‘image’ while working in PR on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. I was good at crafting others' public images but should have also paid attention to my own. I experienced severe burnout and chose to leave politics. I was underpaid, frustrated, and over it.

At the time, I had no idea that the missing link was self-image. Luckily, I met Tonya Leigh.

In SOSI, I learned about the power of self-image and went to work on my own. I used my style to communicate my values and started making style statements.

Then, I launched my own PR boutique for the everyday professional woman. By giving myself “the royal treatment,” my emotional health improved. After taking the ‘Wealthy Woman’ course, I created a significant increase in my net worth in 7 months. Then within 6-weeks, I negotiated a $100K coaching contract in my PR boutique.

Best of all, my marriage and family relationships also improved. Applying the SOSI tools created profound ripple effects in my life.”

A New Approach to Self CareCaring for yourself – truly caring for yourself – goes so much deeper than lighting candles, taking baths, or pouring yourself a glass of wine (though I love all of those things).

What makes me feel loved and cared for the most is always when I take the initiative to:

Elevate my regal energy via my thoughts
Speak to myself in loving, inspiring ways
Treat my body to exquisite food & movement
Grant myself permission to love what I love unapologeticallyYou’ll learn how to do all of this in a few weeks during The Royal Treatment, a 5-day virtual workshop. Join me as I show you how to treat yourself like the Queen you are. GIVE ME THE ROYAL TREATMENTPublic Image vs. Self-ImageIn this week’s episode, I’m sharing how to align your public image with your self-image. Trust me - when your self-image is extraordinary and others see you the same way you see yourself? ✨ Magic ✨ happens.

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST// TheEDIT

A weekly digital magazine by the School of Self-Image

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According to Ancestry.com, if a family is in the lineage of one of France's “noble” families and their house has been passed down from generation to generation, it's usually called a “château.”

Well, you already know I’m nobility. And so are you.

(Not treating yourself like a queen just yet? Get ready for my special online event - the Royal Treatment - starting soon. Registration will open next week!)

And even though Fonz and I are currently building the petit French château of our dreams, it has not been passed down through generations... But maybe it will be. Who knows? In either case, I’m still unapologetically calling it a château.

Want to see some of my inspo pics? I’m handling every aspect of the design and it is SO. MUCH. FUN.

I find it so empowering to make your space an expression of the woman you’re becoming. And that was the inspiration for this issue - The Château Issue.

Your home is where you’re creating your extraordinary life. Let’s make it equally extraordinary. This issue will show you how.

Love,

P.S. Will you help inspire our new home? Tag me on all the home inspo that inspires you over on Instagram @tonyaleigh and give me your best tips.

Your home is a reflection of your state of mind.Our surroundings have been scientifically shown to impact our mindset.

So it’s no wonder something magical happens when you elevate your home. You also elevate your soul.

Take a look around your home and ask yourself:

What do you want to add to your home (or take away) to reflect the future you?

Even though our little château will take a year to be built, I’m never “waiting” to make a home beautiful, even if it’s temporary.

Here are some of the ways I’m elevating the feel of my little rental townhome now:

Fresh flowers
Candles that fit the season
Music playing in the background, all day long
Plants (this is my newest obsession)
Keeping things clean and orderly
Fresh sheets, always
Beautiful coffee table books about things I love
Some simple artwork on the walls

Don’t underestimate the power of these simple edits.

They can go a surprisingly long way toward shifting your state of being - and changing how you see yourself.

Living Life Perfectly Imperfectwith Elaina Veveakis, President of Expert Meetings & Events“I am a huge fan of Tonya's work, and I love her as a friend. The transformation she made in her own life inspires me so much to also become the best version of myself.

Before SOSI, I had moved toward a maximalist style in relation to my home (and life!) However, through the SOSI teachings, I have been starting to think more about editing than acquiring. I'm on a mission to ditch ALL of the things that do not bring me closer to my best self.

It's important to me that I absolutely love everything in my home and that it feels beautiful and peaceful and is fresh and clean when I walk in the door.

Right now, I’m really enjoying vintage thrifting and antiquing, and shopping at Mom + Pop boutiques.

Here are a few photos of my home.

I think what I love most about thrifting is bringing new life to old pieces. Finding unique things that have a history is such a thrill. I love mixing old with new and higher-end with mainstream.

Creating beautiful spaces is my love language. My motto is: Living life perfectly imperfect and creating beautiful surroundings along the way.”

A Simple Way to Elevate the Beauty of your HomeHiring an expensive interior designer isn’t the only way to elevate your style at home. Books are a great option for learning as you go. Start by noticing colors, lines, patterns, and furnishings to get a sense of the styles that speak to you—and let the beauty unfold from there.

Here’s a book I’ve been loving recently: Live Beautiful by Athena Calderone

BUY THE BOOKWhat Your Home Reveals About YouYour kitchen countertops, the embroidered towels in your bathroom, the state of your bed, even your messy sock drawer—the way you keep your home, and the things you choose to display (and hideaway) speak volumes about the way you see yourself.

Who do you want to be?

And what if I told you that the way you care for your environment holds immense power? In this week’s podcast, we explore the connection between your home and your self-image.

I’ll show you how to align your space with the woman you’re becoming. Don’t miss this episode!

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST// TheEDIT

A weekly digital magazine by the School of Self-Image

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Listen to the Full Episode:In this episode, Tonya Leigh discusses the three crown jewels of Queen Energy - ways of being and attitudes that create Queen energy. The first crown jewel is taking commitments to oneself seriously. The second crown jewel is self-care. The third crown jewel is that of an attitude of acceptance.

A queen is someone who takes their commitments to themselves seriously and does not shy away from the discomfort of making changes in order to become a powerful leader of their own life. A queen also has a 'red velvet rope'; they know how to set boundaries and limit access to their life. This can mean saying no to people and events they don't want to participate in. A queen is someone who sets high standards for themselves and respects their own needs and wants. They understand that in order to achieve their goals, they must make sacrifices and push through the discomfort of change.

This conversation is about why it is important to set boundaries for yourself in order to be the queen of your life.

What You Will Discover with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: 0:00:00 "The Three Crown Jewels of Queen Energy: Taking Your Commitments to Yourself Seriously" * 0:04:05 Building Trust with Yourself * 0:07:48 Becoming a Queen: Crown Jewels 1 & 2 * 0:10:09 "The Power of the Red Velvet Rope: Setting Boundaries and Becoming a Queen of Your Life" * 0:14:54 Exploring Queen Energy: Accepting Yourself Fully to Create Results and Feel Better * 0:17:12 Accepting Yourself: A Conversation on How to Embrace Your Humanness and Move Forward in Life * 0:20:30 "The Three Jewels of Queen Energy: Taking Commitments to Yourself Seriously, Creating Boundaries, and Accepting Yourself Fully" QuotesConnect with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: Join Now: The Royal Treatment Workshop* * *FREE Download: Self-Image Manifesto* * Follow me on *Instagram * Find me on Facebook * Subscribe on Youtube * Watch me on TikTok DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:I've been studying women who I see as queens for a long time, and I've identified three ways of being, or three attitudes you can say that create queen energy. And that's what we're talking about in today's episode, the Three Crown Jewels of Queen Energy. So let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, Master Life Coach Tonya Leigh.

Hello, my gorgeous friends. How are you doing? I've been up since 3:30 AM. I'm back from my trip and my body is confused as to where she is. So my sleep has definitely been off, but I got up this morning after just lying in bed hoping that I would go back to sleep and decided to put on a 20 minute yoga video of just deep stretching and it felt so good. And I thought about so many of you who, if you were just to do something as simple as stretch for 15 minutes, how much better you would feel. I want this community to be a community of women who treat themselves like a queen.

Queen energy is contagious, it's powerful, it's influential, it's confident, it's kind and loving and yet fierce, and it will change your life. If you're feeling stuck, if you're feeling as if you keep repeating the same patterns over and over. If you feel like you can't make progress, if you feel frustrated, if you feel hopeless, or maybe you just want a big dose of inspiration, maybe you want to hear a new perspective on how you can elevate the quality of your life.

If that sounds like you, I want to invite you to join me for my upcoming workshop called The Royal Treatment. We're going to spend five days together talking about how to step up as queen of your life. We're going to be talking about how you treat your body, how you treat your mind, how you treat your soul. I did this workshop last year and it is by far the most popular workshop we've ever done, and women have been asking when we're going to do it again. And so I think it's a beautiful time of the year as we think about spring cleaning, when we think about moving into the summer. This is such a beautiful foundation to support you during this season of your life and beyond. So come and join us. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/royal and I cannot wait to see you inside the workshop.

I'm going to be talking about Queen Energy a lot this month because of the workshop. And it's something that I've been thinking about a lot recently, what it means to be queen of your life. And so in this episode, I want to talk about the crown jewels of queen energy. There are three specific ways of being, three specific attitudes that when you adopt and you practice, you will step up into that elevated and powerful energy. So let's start with crown jewel number one, a queen takes her commitments to herself seriously. How many of you promise yourself that you are going to do something and then time and time again you don't do it and you let yourself down? I want you to think about you as being in a relationship with you. So let's picture that there's two of you. There's the you that wants to follow through on the thing.

There's the you that has the goals, the you, the part of you that said, hey, this is important to me, so I'm going to put it in my calendar. I'm going to commit to it. And then there's the you that decides if you're going to show up for that commitment or not. And the relationship between these two parts of yourself is so important. And every time you make a commitment to yourself and you don't show up for it, you are breaking trust with yourself. And when you think about a queen running her queendom, it's imperative that the people trust her. It's imperative that she has a high character, that she lives based on her values. Her character is everything. And so when you think about you being at the head of your life, sitting at the head of your table and your dreams and your goals and your desires and everything that you're creating, it's so important that you trust yourself because if you don't, you won't be able to create a powerful entity.

I think about all of those years that I would promise myself, I'll start tomorrow. I know some of y'all can relate. Knowing good and well that I was not going to start tomorrow. I wanted to believe it, but I had let myself down so many times and I kept focusing on all of the times I'd let myself down, I had very little trust with myself. And the solution in the beginning for me was simply to stop making promises. That's where I started because I was just so tired of feeling disappointed. I finally just said to myself, I'm not going to promise myself I'm going to start tomorrow because I know I'm not. Now, if I had had the tools and the coaching that I have now, I would have rather made the promises and figured out how to keep them to myself. But for me in that moment, I just knew that I had to stop lying to myself.

I had to stop breaking trust with myself. And so I just stopped making those promises to myself. And I started to feel a little bit better because at least I wasn't adding an extra layer of disappointment. And then I started to make tiny promises to myself that I felt like I would keep. Because it wasn't even about the action. It was about me fulfilling my promises to myself. It was about me rebuilding trust with myself. And every time I kept that small promise to myself, every time I followed through on a small commitment, I was gaining competence and trust. I was becoming a woman who has her own back and doesn't let herself down. And the irony in all of this is that I had no problems keeping promises to everybody else. You all know what that's like. You follow through on what you say you're going to do for your kids or at work or for your partner or for your friends.

You wouldn't dream of not showing up for them, but showing up for you is difficult. And why is that? Why is it so difficult to keep our commitments to ourselves? And that's the work that you must figure out because the answer is different for all of us. I know for me it was so much discomfort to follow through. I was having to let go of an old identity. And even though the result was going to be incredible, and I knew that, still letting go of an old identity is very hard. It's very difficult. I was so used to being that girl who was on a diet. I was so used to being that girl who let herself down. That identity was so familiar that to finally start showing up for myself was an identity shift. And so we have to be willing to feel the discomfort of taking our commitments to ourselves seriously and following through.

Because if you haven't been doing this, if you've been someone that's let yourself down over and over and over again, it is going to be unfamiliar. And anything that you do that's unfamiliar is difficult in the beginning. Our brain wants to fight the unfamiliar because the brain doesn't trust it. And so part of being a queen, and this is not even one of the crown jewels, but it encompasses all of this, is that you must be willing to feel discomfort in order to change and step up and be the powerful leader of your own life. So that is crown jewel number one, a queen takes her commitments to herself seriously. Crown jewel number two is a queen has a red velvet rope. What do I mean by that? Well, think about what a red velvet rope signifies. If you show up at an event and there's a red velvet rope and you're on one side of it and there's a gentleman or a lady standing there with a clipboard telling you who can and cannot come in, imagine that same principle applied to your life.

A lot of you all are letting anybody and everybody into your life acting any way they so choose. And you're feeling resentful, you're feeling helpless, you're feeling powerless. You're feeling like you are a doormat and you can't be a doormat. You can't allow everything and anything into your life and also be the queen of your life. You must have standards for yourself and for others. I think about the royal family. No matter what your opinion is of them, there are protocols and rules that they live by and others are expected to live by when they are in their presence. Now people can act a fool, but you can't do it in the home of the king or the queen. You will be removed. This month within the membership, we are focused on this one topic alone. I've been teaching about the red velvet rote policy for many, many years, but I've never devoted an entire month to discussing the boundaries in our lives.

I've never dedicated a whole month to really stepping back and asking ourselves, what are we tired of tolerating? Where are we allowing people just to walk into our lives and treat us however they want? How can you be a queen when you're allowing people to walk into your home and trash it? And that's why every single one of us needs a red velvet rope. We need to be courageous enough and powerful enough in ourselves that we have boundaries around what is allowed and what isn't. Now, you don't put up a red velvet rope to change people, and this is the mistake that I see a lot of people make. They're like, oh, I'm going to do this to change you. No. A queen allows people to be who they are, and she clearly states what's allowed in her world. And then people get to choose. Do I want to abide by her rules?

Does that fit into my value system? Does that feel good to me? I will tell you that this has been one of my hardest life lessons. Growing up in the environment that I grew up in, I learned early on to be a people pleaser, and I had very little boundaries because adults were always crossing them quite honestly. And so I didn't know what it was like to be an advocate for yourself, which is what having a red velvet rope is all about. It's about you championing for yourself. And so I remember when I first started setting boundaries, how uncomfortable it was, how afraid I was of people, and I had to be willing for people to be upset with me. I had to be willing for people to have temper tantrums and know that that was on them and my response was on me. But I promise you all, having a red velvet rope has made my life so much better.

And more importantly, it has strengthened the relationship that I have with myself because I see myself as important enough to protect. And a lot of us grew up without a lot of protection, and we've continued to allow our boundaries to be violated. And deep inside, there's like a little girl or a little boy in all of us that just wants someone to step up and say, this is not allowed. Enough is enough. And we have to be willing to do that for ourselves. We have to be willing to have our own backs. And to me, that is the epitome of queen energy. If this is something you struggle with and you are in the membership, I want you to really dive into this month's topic. This is what we are going to be diving into and working on, creating red velvet ropes in our lives so that we can advocate for ourselves, so that we can get our power back so that we can stop letting people violate our boundaries.

And the result of that is going to be this beautiful, powerful, queen energy that you're going to be stepping into. And so I'm so excited to go deeper into this work and the membership this month. And if you want to join us, let's go. Go to schoolofselfimage.com/join. Okay, crown jewel number three of queen energy is this. A queen accepts herself fully, 100%. You leak your power every time you are in battle with yourself. Here's a visual for you. I want you to imagine that you are sitting at the head of this big beautiful table and surrounding it is your queendom. All of the people that look up to you, depend on you, all of the people that you want to have an influence on. All of the people that you're having an impact on their lives, they are surrounding this table and you are at the head of the table arguing with yourself about yourself.

Now, think about that metaphor. Can you lead? Can you impact? Can you influence when you are at war with yourself? And the answer is no. You are going to slow down your progress, and we think that we have to beat ourselves up. We believe that we have to be super hard on ourselves to create results, but it doesn't work. Have you noticed it doesn't work? You might be able to create a result, but you're miserable at the end. And the reason why you wanted that result in the first place is because you wanted to feel better. And so you actually created the opposite of what you're actually after. I love the quote by Carl Rogers where he says, "The curious paradox is that when I accept myself as I am, then I can change." A lot of you all are trying to change by not accepting yourself and it doesn't work because you can't be aligned with yourself and you have to be aligned with yourself to change.

Plus, when you accept yourself 100%, it takes the power away from those people who may not accept you. Let me give you an example. A friend of mine sent me this thread on the internet about things being said about me, and they weren't nice. They were calling me a hillbilly from a trailer. They were saying that I couldn't speak proper English. They were saying that I was lying about my upbringing and my childhood. They were saying that I had no style, no class, just a redneck. Then they started talking about my relationships in the past, and it was just a lot of opinions about me and my life. And I read that. And because of the work I've done on myself, it did not bother me at all. And I just watched myself with amazement. I was like, oh my God, this stuff works that I teach.

As I was reading it, I laughed at a lot of it because it was true. I was like, yeah, I sort of am like a hillbilly from a trailer. That is true. And they are 100% correct that sometimes I say words improperly and it's a miracle that I speak the English that I do. When I think about where I grew up and the grammar and the dialect and the accent, I'm actually proud of my English, even though I get it wrong sometimes. I'm not perfect. And yes, I've had relationships that ended. They are thinking that as a failure. I think of it as a huge success. They don't like my style. That's okay. Not everybody's going to like my style. I like my style. That's what matters. And that's the other thing, and this is a bonus tip, but a queen values her opinion because she knows the whole world's going to have opinions about who she should be and what she should do and how she should think.

And so if she tries to gain the approval of everybody else, she's going to sacrifice herself. And she'll never ever do that. But in order to be that way, you have to accept yourself. You have to accept all of you. A lot of you all only want to accept the good parts, but you can't accept the good parts without also accepting maybe the not so great parts. I'm not perfect and neither is anyone else, right? Sometimes I'm annoying, sometimes I'm cranky. Sometimes I can be rude. And it's never intentional. It's never on purpose. I feel like everybody listening to this, we have good hearts. We mean well, but we're also very human. But if you can't accept your humanness, all of it, you can't move forward in your life. You're always going to be at battle with yourself. Can you accept yourself when you have felt, when you have screamed at your kids, when you've eaten the whole bag of Oreos, when you have made a big mistake, when you have let your friend down, because that's where you get your power.

If you can love and accept yourself at your worst, you will call forth your best. And that doesn't mean that we just do things and not learn from it. But the best way to learn is to accept that it happened and that you're human and you're still 100% lovable and worthy and amazing. And now what? What can you learn? How can you take that and grow yourself? Studies have shown that children, when put in certain environments with positive reinforcement, with kindness, with compassion, with love, they perform better on their test, behaviorally they're better versus the kids that are always being put down and the expectations are low.

And so we get to parent ourselves, so to speak, and hold space for our greatest selves to evolve, for our queens to evolve. But we can only do that if we accept ourselves as we are and that my friend is part of having queen energy. So to recap, the three jewels of queen energy are, number one, a queen takes her commitments to herself seriously. Number two, a queen has a red velvet rope around her life. And number three, a queen accepts herself fully, 100%.

If you want to dive deeper into being the queen of your life, come and join us for my upcoming five day workshop called The Royal Treatment. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/royal, and I cannot wait to see you there, and I'll see you on our next episode. Cheers. Cheers.

Enjoy the Show? Don't miss another episode!Pick your favorite platform below:The Self-Image Manifesto

You’re Invited To Live An Extraordinary Life!

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I was up at 3 AMagain…(Unfortunately, I wasn’t doing

anything hot.)

I was answering customer emails.

“I can do this,” I said to myself.

And I had been doing it.

For a long time.

For some reason, I couldn’t bring

myself to hire any support. My pride

was going to be the death of me.

I had been raised to be a self-

sufficient woman - a superwoman -

and in my mind, that meant going at

it alone.

I didn’t want to inconvenience

anyone.

I didn’t want to appear weak.

I didn’t want to be rejected.

So, there I sat in the wee hours of the

morning with my computer trying to

bang through the entire customer

service inbox on my own.

The next day, I hired my very first

assistant, Alicia.

I immediately felt lighter. She was so

much better at all the things that took

me forever to do…

Customer service

Administration

Organization

Planning

Sorting out my calendar

Booking appointments

Shipping packages

Alicia took literally 20+ hours off of my shoulders per week - overnight. That’s an

entire part-time job.

After seeing how well she did everything, I realized I should have fired myself

a long time ago.

Instead, I used that 20+ hours to dream up new ways to inspire my clients. I

recorded more life-changing content. I did the things I was the BEST at.

And, my business DOUBLED that year…

Plus, I spent more time with my daughter.My health improved. My sleep

improved. My mood elevated.

The point of this story is this. The “superwoman” narrative is played out - the

one where we do it all, by ourselves, and then celebrate our exhaustion, our

overwhelm, our busy, and lack of self-care.

Instead, what if you elevated to Queen-status - inspiring everyone around you to

honor their own gifts and let go of the rest…

Here’s the Queen’s gift. It’s one you can adopt too NAME.

She delegates… That’s it.

She asks for help and then she receives it with gratitude and joy. Today, I love

being supported, just as much as I love supporting others.

I recently hired a new assistant, and her genius offsets my weakness. And, my hope is that her life will be changed forever as a result of our work together.

That’s how I think about hiring help. The person I’m hiring helps me, and I help them.

It’s a win/win, and together, we can create the most beautiful things for the people in my world - people like you, Laura. Have I told you “I love you” recently?

Just in case - I love you.

P.S. Welcome to The Elevate Issue of The Edit. You’ve got to let go of the lower

to receive the higher. You’ve got to let go of the old to receive the new. You’ve got

to ask to attract.

The Delegate to ElevateChallengeToday’s thought edit is more of a

challenge. I would absolutely love for

you to write down every single thing

that you do in a week. I mean it. From

washing the dishes to walking the dog

to meeting with that client.

Everything.

Then, after 7 days, I’d love for you to

get out a sheet of paper and make 3

columns… 1) Delete, 2) Delegate and

3) Delight.

In the Delete column, write all the

things that you don’t need or want to

do. Do you really need to go to that

PTA meeting? Or could you just

glance at the minutes? Does your

client really even want that report? Or

can you just brief them on your next

call? (Be on the lookout for any

“proving” energy - such as proving

that you’re a good mom, a valuable

employee, or even a good person.)

In the Delegate column, write all the

things that someone else could

honestly do better than you, either

because you hate doing the thing or

you’re just not good at it. Could your

teenager wash the dishes? Could your

coworker do that task - you know, the

one that’s actually THEIR

responsibility in the first place? (Be

on the lookout for compensation here.

Who are you protecting? What are

you compensating for? What are you

tolerating?)

Delegating is absolutely essential for

living an extraordinary life. If you try

to do every single thing on your own,

you’re working against your own

humanity. We are designed to live in

communities and to rely on each

other. We’re designed to partner,

collaborate, and synergize. That’s

what life is all about.

In the Delight column, write all the

things that you are choosing to DO,

and then guess what? Your decision is

to delight in it, because what’s the

poing in being doing something and

being miserable about it?

Try this exercise and then tell me

what happened over on Instagram

@tonyaleigh - I can’t wait to hear

about how much lighter you feel!

And an important side note: Will you be able to switch around all of these

tasks at once? Of course not. But at least you know what you’re working toward.

This will happen little by little.

The Magic of Letting GoJennifer Bridgman, MC500 Marketing & Media“When I joined SOSI in June 2022, I had just carried my marketing agency through the pandemic. But by the end of all that, I was beyond exhausted and 20+lbs heavier. My work-life boundaries were almost non-existent.

There was one client whose poor conduct had become unbearable but having just struggled to hold on to every client we have, I was living in scarcity - afraid to let anyone go. Thankfully, listening to the SOSI programs over and over gave me the inspiration and tools I needed to take my power back.

With my business partner’s enthusiastic support, we recently fired that client, and the very next day after giving notice, we got a new client—out of the blue—for the very same monthly retainer we were losing from the fired client!

Here are some other helpful “red velvet rope” changes I’ve made:

Setting aside specific days for client meetings, thereby protecting other days for focused work time
Increasing our rates to attract better and more serious clients
Hiring another senior-level person to handle some of the workload and to free me up from all the meetings
Dressing up every day (no more yoga pants) even if I’m only on Zoom calls.
Setting clear boundaries on my work day and ending every day at 5 p.m.
Taking no meetings on Wednesdays, so I can have an open day for work. My future self “The Queen” is fair and

understanding, but she also has her

own back and she stands up for

herself! I respect myself so much

more now and that carries through

into all areas of my life. Our business

has literally tripled since the

beginning of this year!

We owe a huge debt of gratitude to

Tonya Leigh and SOSI for guiding us

to this point. Without this life raft, I

would surely have drowned by now. It

helps to know we’re not alone and

that we can make powerful changes

together!”

Special note from Team SOSI:

Our next Royal Treatment workshop

is just around the corner! If you want

some Queen energy for yourself, we’ll

be sharing more very soon.

Hire Some Help This Week

There are so many services that make my life easier. If you’re spending a lot of

time on tedious tasks that someone else could do better, I challenge you to get

help.

Here are a few ideas:

Instacart - a grocery delivery service

that could save you hours each week

on grocery shopping alone (not to

mention money on impromptu

unnecessary purchases)

Task Rabbit - an online marketplace

where you can hire anyone to do

almost anything you need. Hourly

rates vary depending on the nature of

the task.

Uber - believe it or not, I will take an

uber to give myself time to do phone

calls and take care of little things in

the backseat while I ride. Sometimes

just not driving can save you a ton of

time.

Indeed - The #1 way I have added

hours back to my day to allow me to

scale my company and enjoy my life is

by hiring an executive assistant. I

found my newest one on Indeed, and

you can too!

Overcomingthe SuperwomanSyndromeI’ve just gotta be honest, Laura

That whole “Superwoman” thing

you’ve got goin’ on is not a good look

on you. (I used to be sooo guilty of

this!) I respect it but I just can’t get

behind you on this one. It’s not

healthy, and it’s not sustainable.

What’s Superwoman Syndrome? In a

sentence, trying to do it all alone.

“Look, Ma! I can raise the kids, make

all the money, clean the house, run

the non-profit, be a member of 5

social clubs, and keep all my

friendships intact, too!”

No. Enough, Laura. You get to put

down that bag. Let me show you how

I did it in today’s podcast.

LISTEN TO THE PODCASTAffiliate Notice: The Edit may contain affiliate links, which means that the

School of Self-Image may receive a small gratuity. The School of Self-Image

only recommends products and services they believe in. However, we cannot

make any guarantees about the quality, reputation, ideologies, or business

practices of the 3rd party companies that are included in The Edit. Please do

your own research and make informed decisions about your purchases

and investments.

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What are you at war with?I used to be at war with food.

Over 200 pounds, struggling daily to find the next quick fix. Buying the next diet book. Picking my appearance apart constantly.

Saying the meanest, most hurtful things to myself in my head all day long …

I couldn’t understand why I did the things I did.

For example, this one day, I stood in line at Dunkin Donuts and ordered…

A dozen donut holes

An apple fritter

And a glazed donut

I drove home with so much excitement – and at the same time, I was filled with self-loathing.

The cognitive cocktail of grotesque indulgence and subsequent remorse was intoxicating. I knew what I was about to do… what I had done so many times before…

Binge and then purge.

It was a very familiar pattern. Don’t you find that the familiar things are the hardest things to stop?

My daughter called from school to ask me if I could come have lunch with her.

“I’m busy, honey. Next time,” I said.

The shame washed over me and tears streamed down my face. I felt so guilty that I had chosen a date with my dark side (a.k.a. sugar and fat) over those precious moments with my own daughter.

That was it. I was FED UP.

(Anything that has a negative impact on my daughter has a way of snapping me into action.)

That was one of the last times I ever stopped at Dunkin’ Donuts.

What’s the saying? Tired of being sick and tired?

That was me. So, I got to work.

Being fed up with yourself can be a beautiful catalyst for your self-image journey.

So tell me, Heather. What are you DONE with? When is enough going to be enough? When will you become truly FED UP?

Welcome to The Catalyst Issue of The Edit. May every obstacle, every challenge, and every hardship in your life become a catalyst for your victory.

Cheers,

P.S. We’ve done harder things before - and we can do this, too.

Meet The Wild Child and The DictatorOkay, so one of the absolute KEYS to unraveling some of your most challenging patterns and catalyzing transformation in your life is to be able to recognize YOUR Wild Child and your Dictator.

The Wild Child is the “no rules, just right” side of your personality. She’s the one that whispers to you,

“You said you only wanted to drink alcohol on the weekend but really, who cares? One glass of wine isn’t going to change anything.”

She wants to be FREE. She wants the rush of those negative (sometimes, harmful) indulgences that don’t serve you…

Think “overdoing” anything, like shopping, eating, staying up watching Netflix until 3am, etc.

But really, she’s afraid. She is afraid of missing out on LIFE. She’s afraid of being controlled. She’s afraid of her innocence being ripped away and letting the seriousness of life suck out all the joy. So she REBELS.

The Dictator, on the other hand, comes in to “save the day” - especially from the TYRANNY of the Wild Child. The Dictator says “No more.”

No more shopping. No more eating. No more Netflix.

The Dictator restricts, deprives, and PUNISHES. She sends you to your room with no dinner. And definitely no dessert.

The Dictator does exactly what the Wild Child was afraid of… She makes life hardened. Sterile. No fun at all. But deep down, the Dictator doesn’t want to be mean. She is just really afraid too.

She’s worried the Wild Child is about to ruin your whole life. She’s worried all that sugar will rot your teeth - so she tries as hard as she can to take back control.

Unfortunately, my dear, neither of these characters - these parts of you - will lead you to an extraordinary life.

What does? Wisdom. It’s your Future Self. It’s your wisest, most compassionate self who loves you unconditionally -

But who also has high expectations and high standards. Your Future Self is sort of like a loving parent. She says things like,

“Sugar isn’t bad in moderation. Have one cookie. Enjoy. But we’re not having ten. Why? Because I love you and I care about your health.”

You could also imagine her like a Queen archetype. She is ruling her kingdom with wisdom, joy, and abundance - and she knows that a thriving kingdom requires healthy food, a balanced budget, and a reasonable bedtime.

To begin making headway with this, just start by noticing whether you’re acting from your Wild Child or your Dictator. Keep notes on when they show up. And if you’re willing, share some insights with me over on Instagram @tonyaleigh.

And if this concept of the Wild Child and the Dictator intrigues you (or you may recognize it from back in the day in my program Slim, Chic, and Savvy) –

Keep an eye out next month for the revival & reinvention of something very special I’m calling “The Slim Masterclass.”

Soulmate Goalswith Grace Alexander“For the past 18 months, I have been building a business as a realtor in the Sacramento area. I invested hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars into coaching and mentorship, staging materials, and brokerage fees. Meanwhile, my peers were getting many more clients than I was, and I was barely making enough to survive.

So, one of the reasons I joined SOSI was to upgrade my self-image to that of a 6 figure real estate agent, which is why I set my Extraordinary Goal to sell 12 houses a year. However, there was still a sense of unease, and I resisted starting the Dream Atelier.

Listening to this month's call about our relationship to our extraordinary goal was an eye-opener. Tonya talked about being madly in love with our goal and the things we would be saying about it.

The conversation in my head was, "This is going to take too long. I don't think I have the patience for you." rather than the feeling "I am going to enjoy the process because this relationship means so much to me."

I've finally realized (or more so accepted - because I've known the truth deep down for a while) that at this point, my heart just isn't in real estate. I didn't want to quit for fear of being a failure, losing everything I had invested, and being a statistic, which is that 90% of Real Estate agents "fail" in the first 2 years.

So my new Extraordinary Goal?! My EG is to build a 6-figure remote business where I can have freedom of location. It is a coaching business built off my 10 years of aerial silks experience. Teaching is my gift, and movement arts are my passion. It is hard and scary to walk away after having invested so much time and intention and money into it but I must listen to my body, heart, and soul.

So here’s to having clarity for the vision, letting go of the things holding us back, and being madly in love with our Extraordinary Goals! I feel committed now in a way that I haven't before! I'm so excited to be one of Tonya's 5,000 After Stories.

An Outfit to Indulge Your Wild ChildWhile I wouldn’t suggest letting your Wild Child run your life, sometimes, you just need to indulge her, and there’s no better way than with a leopard outfit. I added this one to my collection right before my no-shopping challenge.

GET THE LEOPARDPain Pushes (aka the Power of Being Fed Up)So let’s get into the nitty-gritty with our deep, dark patterns that feel… what’s the opposite of extraordinary?

Commonplace. ouch.

The magic here is tapping into the power of those charged-up feelings to make a decision that changes your life forever.

Let’s catalyze some greatness, Heather. You know it’s in you. You’ve just gotta let it out.

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Listen to the Full Episode:Your home is a reflection of the stage or even the state of mind you are in.

Welcome to today’s episode of the ‘School of Self-Image’ Podcast with host and self-image coach, Tonya Leigh, where personal development meets style. This is a go-to podcast for women who desire to transform their self-image so that they can create mind-blowing results in their lives.

Do you agree that your home is a reflection of who you are? Because I strongly believe that your home represents and reveals so much about a person, even their personality. The way you decorate your home, the colors you choose, and the furnishings you choose based on your preferences, speak volumes about you. The things you display such as photographs or mementos that connect to your values and beliefs show what is most important to you. And what about your experiences? Do you travel? Do you cherish those memories and places? Anyone who enters your home will know this instantly depending on what they see. Is your home calm, cluttered, busy, or colorful? What does your home reveal about you?

Over the years of moving from one place to another, I've had so many where I have learned so much about someone just by living for a time in their space. Your home is part of your self-image, even without you knowing it. If you’re curious to know more about what your home reveals about you, head over and listen to this week’s episode!

What You Will Discover with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: 0:00 - Intro * 1:21 - Tips for getting things done * 2:15 - What does ‘home mean to you’? * 6:05 - How is Tonya Leigh living her life? * 10:44 - What is your home saying about you? * 14:14 - My top 4 values * 15:38 - What is your version of your own ‘ideal wealthy home’? * 21:44 - How to be a woman for the future? * 23:23 - Reasons why your home is a great reflection of who you are QuotesConnect with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: FREE Download: Self-Image Manifesto* * Follow me on *Instagram * Find me on Facebook * Subscribe on Youtube * Watch me on TikTok DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:If you're at home while you're listening to this, I want you to take a pause and look around. Everything there is what it is because of something you did. It is there because of something you thought that created a choice that you made. And so our homes reveal this inner landscape that displays to the world and to ourselves who we think we are, our history, our experience, our behaviors, our identity, and our dreams. Our homes are more than just four walls. They reveal so much about who we are and they can be a major catalyst in completely transforming our identity. So let's dive in to today's episode.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello, my gorgeous friends. How are you doing? I'm sitting here. It's 8:15 in the morning. I'm having a cup of coffee, listening to the bird's chirp and getting ready for a very full day.

I am leaving tomorrow for a two-week trip, so, actually a little over two weeks, and I'm going to be gone. And even though this is not a completely unplug trip, I'm going to be working the entire time, I am trying to get ahead with anything that requires equipment, so any videos and podcasts I'm batching and getting done so that I don't have to do those while I'm traveling. And so, that feels really good. I love that feeling of just head down and getting things done. I always feel so accomplished.

I'm also building a house, in case you haven't heard. I've never owned my own home, and so this will be the first house that I own and I happen to be building it. But even in not owning my own home, I've lived in many places that I've called home. And what I've come to understand is that our homes are literally just a 3D expression of our inner home.

I often say your inner world creates your outer world. So, how you think and feel impacts the choices that you make, and those choices create the results. Equally, your outer world, everything that's around you, your environment, your home, the people you hang out with, impact your inner world. And so it's this system that's constantly feeding itself. And that's why, within the School of Self-Image, one of our core pillars is our environment. I'm a big advocate of changing your environment. I'm a big advocate of changing your outer world to help you change your inner one.

One of the ways that we can do that is to focus on elevating, transforming, and possibly even changing our home, the place that we live, because our home reveals so much about us.

I was thinking about some of my family members, and they have lived in the same house for the last 60 or 70 years, and the house literally has not aged, meaning everything is still exactly the same, brown paneling walls. It literally feels like you're walking into the fifties or forties, except they have updated their TVs and they've changed the carpet, but everything is still the same. And guess what? They're still the same. They haven't changed at all. They still wear the same clothes, they wear the same hair styles. They still go to the same places, which isn't more than 15 minutes from the house. They haven't changed, and so their home simply reflects that. And because they're in a home that isn't changing, everything they're looking at is always the same. It doesn't inspire change on the inside.

On the other hand, I think about some of my entrepreneurial friends, and it seems like they're always changing their home. They're living in new places. Maybe they're renting, they are maybe buying new homes, but they are often constantly changing their environment. And you could say, "What came first, the chicken or the egg?" Is it because they're changing so much on the inside that they're changing up their environment, or is placing themselves in new environments causing this exponential growth on the inside? I think it's both.

I've talked often on this podcast about the changes that I made in 2020, one of them being moving into a new apartment. It was a penthouse in Denver. And if you would have walked into that space, I imagine what you would have read about me without ever having met me is that I was a woman who was successful, I was a woman who had her life together, I was a woman who had good taste, I was a woman who was well traveled, you could tell that by the books on my shelf, I was a woman who liked things neat and tidy.

Now, a few of those things at the time were very true for me. They were very much a part of my identity, having good taste, well traveled. But there was a time where that wasn't the case. I've lived into that identity, but there were a couple of things that I was living into.

For example, I was a woman who was successful, that was an identity that I was living into. I had not called up to my own success. Has that ever happened to you? It's like you create this result and your identity hasn't caught up to it yet. And that's why a lot of people often sabotage themselves, because instead of doing the work of aligning their identity with the new result, they just go back to the old identity and recreate an old result.

And so a lot of the work that I did over that year was living into this new level of success that I had, and my home was one of the ways that I did that. It reflected back to me what I wanted to believe about myself.

The other thing was that I was a woman who had it all together. Clearly not true, and I still don't, so I don't want to put that out there that I have it all together because I don't. I'm human. And during that particular time in my life, I was falling apart emotionally. It felt like a return of Saturn. It felt like what I imagined a midlife crisis feels like. But instead of going out and partying and dancing on tables, it was during COVID and I was just at home crying, and I was entering into a new phase, and my home that I created for myself was a reminder that you're not going to always be here. Like this is just the part of the story where you fall apart a little bit, and that's okay. But my home was a way that I healed myself, because it was reflecting back to me that one day, I will never have it all together, but you won't be in this place.

And so our homes can be healing and they can be ways for us to shift our identity. By strategically creating our homes, we can strategically construct an entirely new self-image. And that's been interesting with building this house because, instead of me just picking out faucets and colors, I'm really thinking about it. And I love that I'm doing this during the Style Experience because we're going deep into questions around, who do we want to be and how do we best express that? And so I'm thinking about the next version of me and how I want this home to symbolize who she is.

And so it's not just a house. Instead, it feels like a novel that I'm writing and stepping into, but I'm not in that house right now. I'm in this house, the house that I'm renting until I move into my new house. And so I've been thinking about, what does this house say about me? What does this ... This is where I'm creating a home for probably over a year. And often what I see people do is they wait to create a home. They're always waiting. I'm going to wait until I meet the man. I'm going to wait until I move to the new city. I'm going to wait until I buy my first house.

And so even doing that is reflecting something back to you that I don't think serves you, and that is, "Over there is always better than here." And it also perpetuates this identity of a woman who's always waiting. So, I want to invite everybody listening, like don't wait to make a home. Make the most of where you are with what you have right now. I call that blooming where you're planted. Right now, you're here, and unless you plan to plant yourself somewhere else in the next week, let's make the best of here.

And so in looking at my current house, I was thinking about, what does this say about me? And when we're looking at our homes, it tells a big meta story about us. It can tell us our fears. It can tell us about our darkest secrets. It can tell us about our personality, our dreams. Our house can reveal so much.

It also offers us a snapshot of what's going on within us in this moment. For example, what my home is saying about me right now is that I'm a woman in transition. I don't have all of my belongings with me. We put a lot of it in storage. And I haven't quite gotten my clothes organized yet, which I will be doing in the Style Experience, and I'll be bringing you all along with me as I do that who are in this Style Experience. But it's really saying, "She is in between places."

And when I think about what that means about what's going on within me, in so many ways I'm in between emotionally too. I'm letting go of an old life, leaving Denver. I'm stepping into a new one, getting married, starting a new family. And so it really is indicative of so much of what's going on inside of me.

But then I look around at the things that I've chosen to have over the next year as we live here, and it's actually really telling. That's the beauty of a home. It will reveal to you what's important. It will reveal to you what your values are. It will reveal to you maybe even your dreams and your fears.

I think about people who often don't decorate their homes. If you go into their houses, they're very black and white. They don't have any artwork on the walls. And those are people that are often afraid of making decisions. They're perfectionists, they're afraid of getting it wrong, and so they just make no decisions. So, stay fascinated with what your home is revealing about you.

I remember reading a book by Amy Morin called 13 Things Mentally Strong People Do, and she says in that book you can tell what you build your self-esteem around based on the things you hold onto. And I was like, "What?" And the examples that she gave is like if you have diplomas and your awards framed, you probably value accomplishment. You probably value your intellect. If you have your sports trophies on display, maybe it's your athleticism that you value. Think about the things that you hold onto in your home, and what does that say about you?

For me, I don't even know where my diplomas are. My nursing degree, my BU degree, I don't know where they are, but I do know where my coffee table books on fashion are. I have them with me. I actually put them in the car to be driven cross country because I didn't want them to be damaged in the move. Those and my handbags went in the car. And that reveals a lot about what my values are, what's important to me. Beauty, inspiration, and connection are my top three values, and those have been my values for a long time that I have practiced building my life on.

But more recently, I don't know, in the last couple years, maybe a few years, I added wealth to my core values. And the reason why I added it is because I was afraid to, which is why I needed to. I needed to be honest that wealth is important to me. Being wealthy financially, being wealthy spiritually, being wealthy emotionally, like it's really important that I have an abundant feeling in my life. And for years, I was ashamed of saying I wanted that.

And I know some of y'all can relate. Those of us who grew up with screwed up money stories often have a hard time admitting that it's important, and so we deny that desire, and we end up having split energy around it.

And so being honest about wealth being a core value, as well as beauty, inspiration, and connection, now I feel like I can live in alignment and I can build my life in such a way that reflects those things, starting with my home.

Now, here's the interesting thing. Having a wealthy home does not mean that you go into debt and get a home that you can't afford. Sometimes a wealthy home is having a smaller home because you're honoring that value. So I just want to be very clear about that. You will know it's a wealthy choice for you based on the energy that's driving that choice, but your home will reveal all of this.

I have a dear friend who is overly obsessed with what people think of her. It's unhealthy, and she's been working on it, and she's made a lot of strides. Congrats to her, because I know what that's like. I've been there. But what was interesting is seeing her home, because the parts of her home that people would see were always immaculate, but other parts of her home, such as her closet, were a mess. And think about what that says. "What's most important is what other people think, not what I think."

One of the things that I'm always fascinated by when I travel and I stay in apartments, other people's apartments, maybe I've rented it off Airbnb or whatever, is the story that their place tells. You can tell so much about a person without even meeting them just by walking into their home.

Recently, my best friend Brooke came to visit me so we could play pickleball for a week, and she rented a home that's about five minutes from where I live. And we went over there, and as soon as we got there, the home was gorgeous. It was very a modern home with this beautiful backyard and a pool, it was so pretty. And Brooke was like, "You've got to be friends with these people." And I was like, "Why?" She was like, "They're just our people." And she went on to explain their bookshelf were all the books that we love, and they had a map on their wall with pins of all of the places that they've been, and then we saw pictures of them and their travels and surfing.

And so just by experiencing their home, it's like we had an experience with them, and we understood just based on the choices that they had made for their home and the things that are in it that we probably had aligned values, and now I have to go meet these people because I do think they're cool and I can't wait to be their friend. So, stay tuned about that soon-to-be-friendship. But isn't that fascinating?

Would the people that you want to be friends with want to be friends with you simply by them looking at your home? Let's say that you are wanting girlfriends that you can go to fancy dinners with, and they walk into your home. Do you think they would realize that you all are a connection? What kind of woman who loves fancy dinners, what does her home look like? It's an interesting question. Think about you wanting to be friends with people you can travel with. Would they walk into your home and be like, "Yes, this is someone that loves to travel and I'd love to travel with."

Now of course, we can't know the details of someone. We don't know the nuances of their personality, but we can have an understanding of their values, of their experiences, of their personality, even, based on walking into their home.

You can look at what colors they choose to paint the exterior and interior part of their home. Someone that chooses an all white palette probably has a very different personality than someone that chooses a bright pink. And yes, there are people that paint rooms pink.

You can look at the cleanliness of someone's home, and it begins to tell a story. Is this someone who has a self-image of being organized and orderly and clean, or is this someone who has a self-image of being a mess?

You can look at the photos, or the lack thereof, which is very telling, and see, is this a person who has a lot of friends, has a family, who travels, who goes to weddings and bar mitzvahs and parties, or is this a person who doesn't have a lot of people in their lives?

You can look at the paintings and the art choices, and that's very telling. And one of the big ways that you can tell a lot about a person is the books on their bookshelf. And I've talked about this a lot, but if someone had walked into my home years ago and looked at my bookshelf, I would've had so much shame and embarrassment. I think about me putting my home back then up on Airbnb, but I was renting it, so I really couldn't do that, but had I been able to put it on Airbnb and someone walks into my house and just looks at my bookshelf, the story that it told, and it told a story of a woman who was broken, who hated her body, was trying to fix herself. That's what my bookshelf told. It didn't tell the story of a woman who was worldly and traveled and loved art and design. Oh, no, no, no. Those are things that had to wait until I fixed myself.

So I had this epiphany, and it was, "You need to begin to be the woman that you think you're going to be over there now." And that woman did not sit around reading How to Get Skinny in 10 Days. She was living a full life. And so I got rid of all of those books and I replaced them, and it began to tell a very different story.

What was revealed to me then was I was a woman that was no longer going to wait. I was a woman who was going to start being her future now. And that seemingly small act of changing my bookshelf created this tsunami effect that literally transformed my self-image.

And so take a look at your bookshelf and ask yourself, "Do I like the story that this is telling? Would I be proud for someone to come in and see this bookshelf? Would I like what it reveals about me?" What I've noticed is anytime that there's shame, there's something that you can look at. And if you are ashamed of any part of your house, I want you to heal it. What needs to happen so you're not ashamed for people to come over? What needs to happen so you're not ashamed for people to look into your closet? What needs to happen so that you're not ashamed for people to open your refrigerator?

And here's what I want you to know deeply: no matter the state of your home right now, you are an amazing, beautiful woman. And what your home is revealing about you is simply your thoughts about your environment. Because at the end of the day, that's our whole experience, what we think about everything, so we can guess what we think other people will think, still our thoughts, and we can guess what we would think, always our thoughts.

So, you have two choices, the way I see it. You can either change your thinking and leave your home the way it is. That's always an option. Or you can address those things that you don't like, that you don't feel like are aligned with who you truly are, and that alone will begin to shift your thinking.

You can't do it wrong, but I do want you to get curious about what your home reveals about you. And if you don't like what it's revealing, change it. You have the power to do so. That's why I'm focused on my closet right now, my friends, because I don't like it. I'm out of sorts, I'm getting settled, and so I don't like what it's revealing about me, so I am going to declutter, organize, and address this part of my life right now, this part of my home.

And this is an ongoing process. And the process really is about just staying aware, just paying attention, and it's about elevating what you see every day to reflect back to you what you want to believe about yourself. Have a beautiful, beautiful week, my friends, and I will see you on the next episode. Cheers.

Hey, have you grabbed your free copy of The School of Self-Image Manifesto? If not, what in the world? Head over to schoolofselfimage.com/manifesto and get a copy that teaches you how to think and show up in the areas of mindset, style, and surroundings, so that you can transform your self-image.

Enjoy the Show? Don't miss another episode!Pick your favorite platform below:The Self-Image Manifesto

You’re Invited To Live An Extraordinary Life!

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I was looking through some old photos of me while at my parent’s home.

It’s hard to believe that I am the woman I see in those pictures...

That woman wore baggy pants and sweatshirts. She had mousy-brown hair and a bowl cut.

She carried herself like a girl who was afraid of the world — hunched over, timid, and small.

And she carried extra weight that she thought protected her from the world… but it only weighed her down more.

Yep, that was me.

A lot of things have contributed to my renaissance but there is one thing that sticks out when I think about who I’ve become.

I am a stylish woman.

This is why I cannot wait to start the Style Experience this weekend with an extraordinary group of women. (And I truly hope you’re one of them!)

This experience is about more than the latest trends and accessories. It’s about more than buying clothes and matching colors.

It’s about falling in love with our lives. It’s about expressing ourselves boldly and passionately. It’s about adorning ourselves with respect, appreciation, and courage.

The Style Experience is a revival of what we love. In this edition of The Edit, The Autograph Issue, let’s explore how style can be part of your unique energetic signature.

Just like your autograph, it’s not something that can be replicated because it’s your original creation - the masterpiece of you.

P.S. Last chance to jump into the Style Experience before we begin on March 4 with the first of FIVE style retreats, which runs from 10am EST - 4pm EST. You won’t want to miss this.

JOIN THE STYLE EXPERIENCEWooing Wealth with a Wealthy WardrobeYou deserve to look good no matter where you are, whether at home at the gym or running the kids around town. When it comes to style, know your minimums. Set them intentionally.

If you decided that from today forward, you would always carry yourself with pride and confidence, what would the minimum acceptable level of style be for you?

Would old sweats, hole-y tees, and crocs be ok?

Would worn-out denim and too-tight bras be ok?

Would broken high heels and mismatched socks be ok?

Decide what you’ll eliminate. and what you’ll accept. Then, make the world your runway.

Remembering How to Playwith Betty Lo“When I was a girl I remember loving to play dress up. I would imagine who I would be and what I would look like when I grew up and then bring those thoughts to life through my clothes.

Somewhere along the way, I forgot how to play. I lost that feeling and dressed more for practicality. Life got so busy, I just wanted a uniform so I didn’t have to think about what to wear.

Over the past few years, I have been working from home, and I fell into a habit of wearing soft comfortable clothes. Not very stylish, fun, or imaginative. My style got very stale and boring.

As I am moving into a new level of my Feng Shui and energetic beauty business, I want my wardrobe to reflect that. So when Tonya announced the Style Experience, it fit perfectly with the direction I’m going in my life and business.

I love Tonya’s attitude toward life and her genius fashion sense. I can’t wait to learn more about how she applies this to her wardrobe. I know it’s going to be good!”

Last Chance to Join the Style Experience!Check out what these ladies had to say about learning about style from Tonya Leigh.

So what do you think? Isn’t it time to give yourself a whole new outlook on life? When you look through new eyes, you see the world differently.

This Saturday is going to be incredible. Just wait and see what I have in store for you.

RSVP FOR THE STYLE EXPERIENCEStyle StandardsDo you ever wonder what could become possible for you if you raise your style standards? Embodying YOU on a whole new level only happens when you raise your style standards. Because remember, you don’t get what you want. You get what you tolerate - and I don’t want you tolerating anything less than extraordinary.

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Listen to the Full Episode:This episode is dedicated to all the superwomen out there who are trying to do it all and be it all. Host Tonya Leigh explains how many women find themselves in the predicament of trying to fulfill multiple roles such as being a career woman, mother, wife, friend, daughter and more while also trying to maintain high standards in each role. This is referred to as the Superwoman Syndrome, a term coined in the 1980s by Dr. Marjorie Hansen Chavez in her book The Superwoman Syndrome. Women may feel guilty or ashamed if they cannot meet their own expectations and feel like they need to do and be everything to everyone.The Superwoman Syndrome is a condition which leads to burnout, stress, and other negative health outcomes. People afflicted with the syndrome are not prioritizing their self care, playing, or resting, as they are too busy trying to live up to the expectations of others. To get out of the toxic cycle of the Superwoman Syndrome, one must understand the root of the fear and deal with it.Additionally, they must be willing to say no to things that are not important to them in order to help them focus on their most important priorities. Finally, they must acknowledge that this may mean disappointing some people, but it is necessary in order to take control of one's life.What You Will Discover with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: 0:00:00 Exploring the Superwoman Syndrome: A Conversation with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh * 0:02:54 Understanding the Causes and Consequences of Superwoman Syndrome * 0:04:34 Facing the Fear of Not Being Good Enough * 0:09:25 Prioritizing and Saying No * 0:13:37 Self Care, Saying No, and Being Imperfect * 0:15:38 Tips for Entrepreneurs * 0:17:57 The Benefits of Hiring Help: Taking Advantage of Available Resources QuotesConnect with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: FREE Download: Self-Image Manifesto* * Follow me on *Instagram * Find me on Facebook * Subscribe on Youtube * Watch me on TikTok DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:I'm dedicating this episode to the woman who is trying to do it all and be it all. I'm dedicating this issue to all of my superwomen out there. So let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello, my beautiful friends. Happy day, whatever day you're listening to this. I just had a moment that I feel like all of you can relate to. Tell me if this sounds familiar. You have your schedule for the day, you have work that you are going to focus on, and all of a sudden you start to get calls from your parents or your children, or maybe it's your boss, or maybe it's a coworker, or maybe it's a best friend and they're all needing something from you and you're in this predicament trying to figure out what you should do. And there's a part of you that knows that you don't need to be doing all the things, and yet you find yourself trying to do it all. You find yourself saying yes to all the things and then wondering, what in the world did I just do and how am I going to accomplish it all? Can you relate to that? I know you probably can because it's a phenomenon and it actually has a name. It's called the superwoman syndrome.

This phrase was coined in the 1980s by Dr. Marjorie Hansen Shaevitz, and she wrote a book on the topic called the superwoman syndrome. And basically, it refers to when women feel the need to excel in multiple roles, such as being a career woman, a mother, a wife, a friend, a daughter, and more, and doing that while also maintaining high standards in each role. It's women who feel like they have to do everything and be everything to everyone, and they feel guilty or ashamed if they cannot meet those expectations.

And for those of you who have experienced the syndrome, you know it leads to burnout, it leads to stress. It can lead to other negative health outcomes because when you are in the superwoman role, you're not prioritizing your self-care and you're not prioritizing what's really important to you. You're actually living a life that goes against your values. You're living, living a life that goes against your natural instincts. Our natural instincts are to work, but also to rest and to play. And when you are in the superwoman's role, when you have been afflicted with the syndrome, you're not doing the ladder too. You're not playing and you're not resting because there's no time. All you have time for is working and being who everybody else wants you to be. So if you suffer from superwoman syndrome and you know you can't keep it up and you know that you don't want to be this way and you don't operate this way, it's important that you understand why so that you can get out of this toxic cycle.

And when I was preparing for this podcast, I was thinking about the hears that I tried to be superwoman and trying to understand why was I playing this role even though it was making me miserable. And it really came down to one word, and that word is fear. That's what leads to superwoman syndrome. We are afraid of what people will think. We are afraid that we don't measure up. We are afraid that we're going to be left behind. And let me tell you all something, a life built on fear will crumble eventually because what we do is we try to outrun and outperform our fear, but we're not looking at what needs to be dealt with. And that is the fear itself. And you cannot outrun fear. Have you noticed that? It seems to always be with you.

And so, overcoming superwoman syndrome requires that you face this fear and it's really the fear of not being good enough. And in coaching women for over a decade, all roads lead to that one thing. I'm not going to measure up. I'm not good enough. It's the not enoughness that keeps us in patterns that cause us to be miserable. Not enough money, not enough time, not enough love. I'm not enough. Listen, here's what you need to know, that is just a thought in your head. But when that thought runs your life, it has you doing some crazy things. It has you up at 5:00 AM doing things that you don't want to be doing. It has you showing up in ways that you don't want to show up. It has you saying things and being things that you don't want to say and be, all in an effort to try to prove to everybody else that you're good enough and that there's enough.

But here's what you need to know, right now, in this moment, you can decide that you're enough. And when you are in that state of enoughness, the most amazing things start to happen. You start to create evidence for more enoughness. You start to create evidence for what you want to see and what you want to believe. Have you noticed when you're in a state of fear, you just create more of it? Well, the opposite's also true. When you are in a state of worthiness and abundance and joy, you just attract and see and create more of those things.

Let me give you an example of how this works. When I suffered from superwoman syndrome, and trust me, those of you who have it, you know, you suffer. I had this one friend who was always asking me for things. It was one of those relationships where I was doing all of the giving and she was doing all of the taking. And I could not bring myself to say no to her, and so, I would say yes and then be resentful. And let me tell you all, resent is a telltale sign that you may be suffering from superwoman syndrome. So pay attention if you're feeling resentful or angry or frustrated on a daily basis. Those are three emotions that often indicate that you have this syndrome.

And I definitely, with her, I deep down felt this resentment. But listen, it was on me. I was the one that was constantly saying yes. She wasn't holding me hostage. And I realized that I was so afraid of her leaving me. I was so afraid of her not being my friend. She was one of the cool girls in the neighborhood. And so, I was bending over backwards to get her friendship. I was bending over backwards to please her.

And this was right around the time that I discovered coaching. And I started to do some work on myself. And I was realizing what was creating this. And I thought to myself, if I respected myself, if I felt enough, if I felt worthy, would I be saying yes to her demands? And the answer was no. I would not be saying yes. I would be saying no a lot. And so, I started to practice that. And guess what? She did leave. And thank God. All of a sudden I felt so free. I felt so much better. I felt this weight off my shoulders because every time I was around her was full of anxiety.

And I know some of y'all can relate to this. You have friends in your life right now who you have a very similar pattern with. But here's where it gets wild and here's what I want you all to know, being in that state of enoughness and just hanging out there and trusting that the universe will deliver as she always does, I started to attract a different kind of friend. A friend who wanted to give, and to support, and to celebrate. And I continue to attract those kinds of people into my life. I don't have to be superwoman with these new friends.

And that's what I'm talking about. When you get into a state of loving yourself, respecting yourself, knowing you're worthy, you will not have this tendency to perform for the world, which is what you're doing when you're suffering from superwoman syndrome. It's like you're on a stage performing, trying to keep everybody happy. And here's the thing, not everybody likes the performance, but you're over here trying to be one character whenever you're trying to be another one. And it's exhausting. And I'm just inviting you to consider that that's not the stage you're meant to be on. I want you to be on the stage where you can dance and do and be who you want to be and trust that the right audience will appreciate that.

When it comes to overcoming superwoman syndrome, there are a few things that you must practice. And the first one is you must prioritize. And prioritizing is deciding what is most important, one thing. I know it's hard for a superwoman, one priority, but that's what the word means. Is derive from the Latin word prioritas, which means first in rank. There can only be one thing, one priority.

Now, I do know that there are other things that are important to us, but what is the most important thing to you during this season in your life? Is it family? Is it work? Is it your health? Is it relationships? What is the most important thing? And allow yourself to be honest. I feel like when we suffer from superwoman syndrome, we look around at the world and we want the world to tell us what's most important. And the world has got some crazy ideas. Have you noticed? And everybody's going to have a different opinion.

Some people will tell you that during this season of your life, being a mother should be the number one priority. Some people will tell you, "Oh, no, no, no, no, you should make work a priority." Other people be like, "No, no, no, no, no. You should make your health a priority." And so, you are going to have to look within yourself and be honest with yourself about what is most important to you right now. And this can bring up a lot of guilt because what if you're a mom but that's not your number one priority right now. Maybe your number one priority is growing your business. You've got to own that for yourself. Now, that does not make you a bad mother. That just makes you a decisive woman who knows what she wants. Doesn't mean you're going to neglect and abandon your child. It just means that you might get creative in how you parent. But what if you gave yourself permission to be honest about what you want and stop looking to the world to tell you what you should make a priority right now?

And then, beyond that first priority, I do believe that we need to give ourselves permission to have maybe two more that we want to focus on. So I always think about the top three focuses in my life during this season and putting them in rank and making sure that my calendar and my actions are supporting what I say is a priority, which means, and this leads to number two, to overcome superwoman syndrome, you must be willing to say no to the things that are not important to you right now. And that means you're going to disappoint some people. You're going to have some people that are upset. You're going to have some people who think you are selfish. You're going to have some people that think you are the devil because you said no, and you must be okay with that.

The next thing you are going to have to do if you want to overcome superwoman syndrome is you must, you must put self-care on your calendar before anything else. And you all who are in the membership, you know that this is how we schedule. We put self-care, which means health stuff, fun stuff, leisure, vacations, all of that goes on our calendar first, and then we fit everything else around that. And that too means you're going to have to say no to some things.

When Susie across the street calls you up to see if you can bake cookies for the church bake sale and you realize that that is going to interfere with your plans to go to the spa, you're going to have to be willing to tell Susie, "No, it's not going to work." And Susie may be disappointed and that's okay, but Susie has an oven. She can bake those cookies if it's that important to her.

This is where you all get a little freaked out. You're like, "But isn't that so selfish?" Do you know what's worse than selfish? Is you lying to Susie and doing something even though you don't want to do it. I would much rather someone be honest with me and say, "You know what? No, thank you. I appreciate you asking me, but it just doesn't feel good" versus me doing it for Susie, and then every time I see Suzie's face, I'm full of resent. Susie doesn't deserve that. So you must put you on your schedule first and be willing to say no to the things that interfere with that.

The other thing that you must do is be willing to be imperfect. I know, this one's tough, but oftentimes perfectionism leads us to trying to over-perform and outperform our own lack of worth, which is what perfectionism is. I'm not good enough and I'm afraid of being found out, so let me put on this facade and pretend that I am perfect. This is what superwomen do. And in order to overcome the syndrome, you must be willing to be imperfect. You're going to have to let some things fall through the cracks and realizing you're okay.

This is especially true for us entrepreneurs. We tend to have very perfectionist tendencies. I know for me, I want to please all of my clients. I want things to be perfect. And I know if I stay in that energy, it's coming from fear. And I also know what I teach to my clients is you are amazing just as you are. That's how I want them to see themselves. Even when you make mistakes, even when you fell, even when it's not all buttoned up and tidy, you're still extraordinary. You're still amazing. And when you're in that state of knowing that, people recognize. Life really is about energy. It's not about being perfect. It's about your energetic state. And people who are perfectionists are often vibing at a low level because it's being driven by fear and insecurity.

And so, to overcome superwoman syndrome, you're going to have to be willing to be imperfect and to realize that it's a beautiful thing because that means you've accepted yourself as you are and you're showing up in your most expansive self. And expansive does not mean perfect. Expansive means true, what's true for you and showing up in that way.

The final thing that you must do to overcome Superwoman syndrome is get help. Delegate things to your family, to your loved ones who want to help, hire people. Listen, you all, there's this thing called TaskRabbit, where you can go on and hire someone to do a simple task that you just don't want to do. There's also this thing called Fiverr, where you can put up a random task in your business, and someone who's probably way better at doing it than you will raise their hand and be like, "Yes, I would love to take over. This is my fee." There's this thing called Indeed, where you can post an application for help, an assistant, someone to help you with customer service, and there's someone there to help you. There's this thing called care.com, where you can find someone to watch your loved ones. There's a thing where you can get a dog sitter.

There are all these amazing apps with help at your fingertips, and yet a lot of you refuse to take advantage of it. Why? Why aren't you getting the help that you need? And I know that my Superwomen, we're out here probably raising families, working, growing companies, and we're trying to do it without any help. And it's because our ego, it's because of pride. Didn't society tell me that I should be able to do this on my own if I'm good? If society told us that, society is lying. And society lies a lot to us, have you noticed? Society tells us that we have to be six feet tall and 120 pounds to be beautiful. That's the biggest lie ever sold.

So if they're telling us that, why would we believe that also, to be a good human, you must not ask for help. You must do it on your own. Come on. You get to make up your own rules in life. And I've decided that hiring help, delegating, getting help is one of the most strong things I could ever do because it's coming from a place of strength, not weakness. It's coming from a place of I have my genius. I deserve to have support. I'm not afraid of what people are going to think if I get help. It's coming from this place of strength and abundance to ask for help. And when you build your life on strength, abundance, joy, enoughness, you're just going to create more of it.

And what I can tell you is that the more help I get, the better my life gets, the better my business becomes, the better my health gets, the better my overall wellbeing is. And yet, for years, I would not allow myself to do it. I was raised to be a strong southern girl. And those girls, we know we can do it on our own, or at least that's what we're taught. And where has that gotten us? Burnt out, resentful, anxious, pressured, aging quickly, tired, cranky. No, thank you. I don't want to be superwoman any longer. I want to be happy, loving, abundant, and healthy woman. And turns out you can't be both.

Have a beautiful, beautiful week, my friends, and I will see you on next week's episode. Cheers.

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You’re Invited To Live An Extraordinary Life!

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If I filmed my own version of Eat Pray Love, it would be titled, “I found God at Bergdorf Goodman.”

Spirituality is defined as a “process of personal transformation; any kind of meaningful activity or blissful experience.”

I think a spiritual person is someone who wants to experience the Divine through moments of awe, which is exactly what I experienced in Bergdorfs — in the most stunning flowing skirt of the Oscar de la Renta collection, the red soles on a nude pair of Louboutins, the scent of Tom Ford’s Black Velvet, and a pair of Chanel sunglasses.

I walked out and didn’t buy a thing but for two hours, I was enraptured.

My style journey has always felt sacred to me. Ever since I was 10, the pages of Vogue have captured my imagination about the woman I could become.

In many ways, style has been my muse - a source of inspiration, leading me toward an extraordinary life.

I want to help women feel fabulous -

And style is one of my favorite personal development tools. In this edition of the Edit - The Muse Issue - I want to talk about how to use style to attract wealth.

Wealth is a currency. It flows toward inspiration and abundance, and it flows away from scarcity and lack.

When I started being intentional with my style choices, carefully editing my closet, and spending money on pieces that not only matched my style but my future — I began to attract more wealth into my life.

As I showed up differently — in my thoughts and style — what surrounded me became different, including my bank account.

What if you were money’s muse, Heather? What if you could learn to draw abundance toward yourself?

How fun would that be? This issue will show you how.

Wooing Wealth with a Wealthy WardrobeLogos and price tags don’t attract money –

Money is attracted toward energy that is abundant and expansive.

To curate a wealthy wardrobe and use style to expand your energy, choose pieces that make you look and feel incredible.

Instead of ignoring your style - make intentional choices.

Instead of stuffing your closet with sale items - invest in quality.

Instead of grabbing loads of fast fashion - wear timeless looks that express the essence of you.

Don’t choose items because they’re expensive or designer.

Choose them because when you wear them, you feel like a wealthier version of yourself. Choose them because when you look in the mirror, you’re inspired by the woman looking back at you.

If your version of wealth and abundance had a muse, what would she be wearing?

A Style Renaissancewith Tricia FrancesRecently, my marriage of 42 years ended - and despite the infidelity and abuse, I’ve been able to stabilize myself with therapy, coaching, and self-help.

Although I was always stylish growing up, I found myself hiding in loose clothing to disguise the extra weight I gained from an eating disorder that had developed as a result of all the trauma.

Not only has the School of Self-Image helped me regain my love for life - it’s also helped me to learn to love the body I’m in and to lean on style to reemerge as a new woman.

As soon as the Style Experience was announced, I immediately grabbed my seat. This year I’m going to continue developing my chic, feminine, elegant, and edgy style. I’ve already created a capsule wardrobe and made 6 major investments in handbags, belts, boots, and heels.

As a modern renaissance woman, style ties together all of my goals, from writing to wellness to wealth creation.

I’m so grateful God led me to Tonya back in 2018.

Dressing the Body You Have Now for More WealthStyle has been one of the best investments I’ve ever made. Not only do I look and feel amazing when I’m well-dressed, but I also believe that great style helps me make more money and attract more wealth in my life.

But what if you’re worried about dressing the body you have right now?

What if you believe that you have to:

Lose a little weight first Get more toned Wait it out until next season

… before spending anything on yourself?

Style has been one of the best investments I’ve ever made. Not only do I look and feel amazing when I’m well-dressed, but I also believe that great style helps me make more money and attract more wealth in my life.

But what if you’re worried about dressing the body you have right now?

What if you believe that you have to:

Lose a little weight first Get more toned Wait it out until next season

… before spending anything on yourself?

Abundance and wealth are attracted to self-confidence and self-love.

So when you wear clothing that feeds a negative self-image, even if you’re telling yourself “It’s only for a little while”, it’s reaffirming your insecurity and scarcity mindset.

It sends messages to your subconscious, like:

“You’re not worthy until you look like THIS.”

“You’re not loved until you do THIS.”

And I can guarantee you that your future self - the one who’s fit, wealthy, AND stylish - would never speak to you that way.

She would say, “You are worthy at any size or fitness level. You are loved no matter what you look like. And you are either stylish or you’re not stylish. Style doesn’t have a color, shape, or size. Style comes from within.”

The foundation of style - at least in my world - comes from a place of self-respect. It’s treasuring yourself and adoring yourself through the ups and downs.

It’s having your own back and honoring yourself through the journey. It’s loving yourself to the goal.

If your style needs a little love, let’s spend 5 months together editing your wardrobe and reinventing your stylish self-image.

Together, we’ll rebuild your wardrobe from the ground up -

First, we’ll define your ideal personal style.
Then, we’ll edit your current wardrobe and show you how to make the most of what you already have. (I bet there’s some gold in there!)
Finally, we’ll get creative and build new outfits to reflect the woman you’re becoming.

One thing’s for sure. You won’t recognize yourself when you look in the mirror.

Are you game for a total transformation? RSVP for the Style Experience now - starting March 4!

RSVP FOR THE STYLE EXPERIENCEThe ROI of StyleThe ROI of Style According to Corporate Finance Institute, Return on Investment, or ROI, is a financial ratio used to calculate “the benefit an investor will receive in relation to their investment cost.” I always see style as an investment in myself that helps me attract more abundance into my life. If you want to use style as a tool to become a wealthier woman, then this episode is for you.

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST// TheEDIT

A weekly digital magazine by the School of Self-Image

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Listen to the Full Episode:In this episode of The School of Self-Image the host Tonya Leigh talks about the concept of a pain push, which is a way of motivating yourself to take action and achieve your goals, even when you feel like you're sabotaging your own efforts. She explains that it's important to recognize what your pain points are, and use them as your motivators.

In this conversation, Tonya reflects on a moment in her life when she hit rock bottom and was fed up with her own behavior. She calls it a pain push and views it as a blessing in disguise that was the catalyst to make big changes in her life.

What You Will Discover with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: 0:00:01 Episode #1: Harnessing the Power of a Pain Push to Take Action and Achieve Your Goals * 0:02:15 "The Power of Being Fed Up: How Pain Can Be a Catalyst for Change" * 0:06:03 Reflection on Rock Bottom Moment: A Catalyst for Change * 0:08:26 Heading: Exploring the Concept of Pain Pushes Before the Pain * 0:10:38 Using Pain as a Motivator: How to Get Moving Towards Your Goals * 0:15:17 Exploring the Use of Pain as a Motivator for Change * 0:17:05 "Using Pain to Push Yourself Towards Your Goals" QuotesConnect with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: FREE Download: Self-Image Manifesto* * Follow me on *Instagram * Find me on Facebook * Subscribe on Youtube * Watch me on TikTok DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:Do you struggle to take action? Do you find yourself sabotaging your efforts even though you have these amazing, extraordinary goals? If so, maybe what you need is a good old pain push, and that's what we're talking about in today's episode. So, let's dive in.

Welcome to The School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello, my beautiful friends. I wish you all could see me right now. I am fully clothed, under the covers in my bed, recording this podcast. My new setup at my townhouse that I'm renting is an interesting one. I actually love my new office. It's on the bottom floor, and it's open and it's huge. It's so big.

The problem, however is that there's no way to close it off. You walk in and there's the office, and then you go up some stairs, and the middle floor is the living room and the kitchen. Then on the top floor are three bedrooms.

Right now, I have quite a few people in my house, and they're trying to be quiet, but they're not. I finally got fed up and decided to record my podcast in my bedroom, in my bed.

Speaking of being fed up, that's what today's episode is all about. What are you fed up with? What are you tired of tolerating with yourself?

Now, I know we can answer this when it relates to other people, probably very easily, but the ability to be honest about what you're fed up with yourself about is so powerful. It can be an amazing catalyst.

I shared a story in the edit that came out the same day as this podcast. The edit is a weekly newsletter that we send out that, is so good. If you are not getting it, what in the world? Head over to shoolofselfimage.com/edit. Get on the list. We send it out every Wednesday.

I talk about me being fed up, and I've had many moments in my life, where I reached a point where I was like, "Something's got to change. I just cannot continue like this." Usually, it's those moments when you've hit rock bottom.

I like to call these pain pushes. You get pushed because of the pain. The pain, literally can push you out of it because we are wired to avoid pain and to pursue pleasure. Most people will choose to avoid pain before they will choose to pursue pleasure. Pain can be a very powerful catalyst.

For me, the story that I shared in the edit this morning, and it's one of those pain pushes that I needed, and it was definitely a rock-bottom moment.

I was driving home from dropping my daughter off at school. She was probably around, I don't know, seven, eight. I was battling with my body and food. I had bulimia, and I was constantly obsessed with my weight, with food, with my body, with trying to be perfect. It was so consuming and so overwhelming, and I did not know how to get out of this cycle.

Many mornings a week, I would do this. I'm not proud of it, but now I can tell this story and hope that it inspires someone out there who might be dealing with something similar.

Many mornings, I would drop her off and I would go buy Dunkin' Donuts. It was halfway between her school and my home, and my husband at the time, he would be at work. I looked forward to this time. It was almost an escape from the world.

I'd stop at Dunkin' Donuts and I would get a dozen donut holes, an apple fritter and a glazed donut. I would get a God awful amount of food, and I would drive home and I would start eating it before I got home, and I would get into the house and I would just eat.

There would be such an excitement to this behavior, followed by this sense of deep shame and sadness because I would eat and then I would purge, and then I would feel so bad about myself, but I did it in my own little secret world.

I'll never forget this particular day. I dropped my daughter off and I was in the process of eating my donuts. She calls me from school and says, "Hey, mom. Do you think you can come have lunch with me?" I told her, "No."

It's like, I chose to date my sugar and my fat instead of going on a date with my daughter. I'll never forget, that was a rock-bottom moment for me. I looked at myself and said, "Girl, you're missing time with your daughter. You're missing time with your life. You are destroying your health. This has got to stop."

That was a defining moment. That was a moment I made a decision that I was done. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired, as my grandmother used to say. That, what I call a pain push was the catalyst to get me to create so much change in my life.

I've been thinking about that moment a lot because I've had several big moments like that, where I felt like I was at rock bottom. Maybe some of you all are listening right now and you're thinking, "God, I feel like I can't go any further down."

This could be a blessing in disguise. This could be the catalyst that you need, to get you moving in a different direction. The way I like to think about it is, when you're down, you got two choices. You can stay down or you can get up. Right?

That was a moment where I was like, "This is low. I'm at one of my lowest points. I'm down. Am I going to stay there or am I going to get up?" Then the work comes in. It was a decision, but then I had to practice living out that decision every single day, and that's a lot of the work that we do within The School of Self-Image.

Talking about self-image, when I thought about myself, that's not how I wanted to see myself. Now, the crazy thing is, the outside world, they didn't see that side of me. I was really good at pretending. I was really good at putting on a happy face. I was really good at looking like everything was okay, but I knew that I wasn't okay.

It is hard living a double life. It's hard having that lack of congruence, that misalignment. Not only are you battling yourself, you're battling this double life that you're living, and it's exhausting.

For me, I had hit rock bottom and I needed that pain push to get me out. However, I want to believe that we don't have to hit rock bottom in order to make changes. I've been playing around with this idea of pain pushes before the pain.

This came to me when I was actually at dinner with a girlfriend of mine right before I left Denver. She was sharing with me how she's been feeling guilty about spending time with her husband and her son, and she'd rather work, but she knows that, that's not what she really wants to do. When she thinks about her life and her future and her legacy, she wants to put more time and focus on her family. She's just really torn.

Even though she wants to spend more time with her husband and her son, she finds herself working a lot because that's very familiar and that's what she's used to doing. She was trying to figure out how to break the cycle.

I said to her, I'm like, "Listen, I'm not going to coach you right now. I just want you to think about this." I'm like, "Think about, if you continue this behavior with your husband specifically, what do you think's going to happen? The behavior of ignoring him, not going out with him, neglecting the relationship. What do you think's going to happen over time?"

We started to talk about it, and she was like, "Oh, my God. I could see him, maybe having an affair. I could see him, maybe leaving me. I could see him finding someone who values him, and treasures him, and gives him all of the love that he deserves."

Then she started to see her son spending time with her then ex-husband, and maybe his new wife, and her being all alone in her little house feeling bad because she didn't make the decisions to keep the family together.

Her visualizing the potential pain of what could happen has inspired her to make all of these changes in her relationship. I actually used a imaginary pain push to give me the courage to leave my last relationship, because I was afraid to leave. I had a lot of guilt about it, but I, literally visualized my life, living in that little mountain town of only 100 people in the winter, snowed in, five years from now, and it was so painful to think about.

Now, equally, I started to visualize what my life could be. I was simultaneously using pain and using pleasure to give me the courage to walk away from that relationship, but it was the pain, the pain push that was most effective.

Now, I don't want to spend the majority of my time imagining and thinking about pain. That's not what I'm suggesting, because if we focus on pain too much, we will create pain. What we focus on, grows. I do think it's so valuable to use a pain push for the sole purpose of getting you moving away from the pain and then focusing on the pleasure of what you're moving towards, because a lot of people just sit around and focus on what they don't want. They focus on the pain and they just keep their focus on that, so that becomes their experience.

What I'm suggesting is that you focus on that just enough to get you moving in the opposite direction. Are you with me? This can be so effective when it comes to achieving your goals.

In fact, I see this happen a lot of times with some of my weight loss clients. They will start to think about where they're going to be a year from now, five years from now, 10 years from now, if nothing changes. What they see is so disturbing and so painful that, that gives them the oomph that they need, to start making changes.

Then, what I want them to do is start to look ahead into their future, and getting excited about the woman they're becoming. Getting excited about, how taking care of themselves and eating well is going to give them energy, and how that energy is going to help them create other dreams that they have.

How they're going to be able to play with their grandkids, and how they're going to be able to fit into that dress, and how they're going to feel so proud of themselves. We do focus on the pleasure, but sometimes, my friends, it takes a good old pain push to get you going.

If you find yourself, not taking the action that, you know, deep down you want to be taking, but you just keep sabotaging yourself and procrastinating, think about how you can use pain as a way to motivate you, to get the momentum going. How can you use pain as a way to get you into action?

I think about people who smoke, and I saw this a lot when I worked as a critical care nurse. You would have someone who smoked for years, and they would try to quit and they were unsuccessful. Then they get a cancer diagnosis and they can quit just like that. It took a pain push, to get them to quit. Knowing that pain can be a great motivator to get you going, to get you started.

Now again, I don't think it's a great fuel to keep you going. Some people are constantly taking action out of, fear of pain, and that isn't good at all. However, if we know that we are wired to avoid pain and pursue pleasure, the question becomes, how can we use that for us?

The other thing that you have to understand is that the brain doesn't know real from imagined. You can think about something and the brain's like, "Oh, we're in trouble," just from visualizing it and thinking about it.

Knowing this, how can you visualize pain in a way, to inspire you to take action? Now, this may go against what is out there and what a lot of people say, and I think I've probably even said in the past, "You don't want to fuel your action with negative emotion." However, if it helps you to make the change that you are wanting to make, is it a bad thing?

What I've come to learn in this world of personal development with myself is that there is no one truth. There are nuances to everything. There's no one formula. I think everybody's wanting the formula. They're wanting the model, they're wanting the method. They're wanting the A to Z. They're wanting the step by step to living an extraordinary life, and there's not one.

I teach the self-image method and I think it's brilliant, but there's even nuances in that, that I always tell my clients. I'm like, "Listen, take what serves you and let go of the rest. The wisdom is within you. Don't outsource that to me or anybody else. You have a brilliance within you, and I'm simply here to help you figure out what that is. So, if a pain push helps you to take the necessary action, if that's what you need to start moving away from the thing that keeps hurting you, and point you towards the pleasure of, the possibilities of your future, I am all for it."

Why not? Why not use whatever works? I want you to think about something that you deeply, deeply want. What is a goal that you have? Within The School of Self-Image, I have everyone choose an extraordinary goal. I want you to play around with this concept of using pain to get your butt into action, to get you going.

Maybe you want to visualize the pain, if you continue to do what you're currently doing that's causing you to create results that are painful, that's causing you not to live the life that you know you're here to live, and allow yourself to sit in that for a moment. Allow yourself to marinate in it.

Allow yourself to be with that painful vision just for a moment or two, or however long it takes for you to be like, "I am fed up. I am fed up and I am ready to make a change," because this could be your defining moment. This could be the moment where you decide, and everything changes.

Don't be afraid of a good old pain push. Have a beautiful, beautiful week, my friends. I cannot wait to see you in the next episode. Cheers.

Hey, have you grabbed your free copy of, The School of Self-Image Manifesto? If not, what in the world? Head over to schoolofselfimage.com/manifesto and get a copy that teaches you how to think and show up in the areas of mindset, style, and surroundings so that you can transform your self-image.

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Have you ever heard of Esther Hicks?

She teaches the Law of Attraction by sharing from “infinite intelligence… a group of non-physical entities called Abraham.”

From Esther’s website, Abraham is also recognized by some of the great teachers of our time.

“Louise Hay calls [Abraham] ‘some of the best teachers on the planet today.’

To Dr. Wayne Dyer they are ‘the great Masters of the Universe!’”

Last year, I went to see Esther Hicks (or should I say Abraham?) I’ve been a fan of their work for years, and I couldn’t wait to witness the teaching in person.

When I bought the tickets, I didn’t know it would be my first - and last - time.

As Abraham teaches, the Law of Attraction says that like attracts like, so you can understand my surprise when I found myself wanting to leave the event the entire time.

I could literally feel my body aching to exit.

The environment, a cheap ballroom on the outskirts of Denver, paired with the overall style of the event produced a vibration that was not my jam at all.

| And, it was there - at a Law of Attraction event - that my belief was confirmed:Everything has energy, including the clothes you wear and the places you visit.How ironic that I was spun out of the vortex at an event that’s supposed to get you into it.Life is funny sometimes.Welcome to The Vortex Issue. Let’s talk about how to get in the energy of the life you want and so deeply deserve. |

Creating Your Own Vortex with StyleThere’s a phenomenon called “enclothed cognition” which says that the clothes you wear have a direct impact on your psychological processes. Said differently, your clothes have been scientifically proven to shape the way you think and behave.

“Creating a Vortex” means wrapping yourself in the energy you want to exude, both with your thoughts and with your clothing. Your style choices can help you tap into a sense of confidence, be a bolder visionary, or even adopt a more playful persona.

If dressing differently feels like a stretch, think of it like this:

You’re practicing the role of the woman you’re becoming until you become her. It’s magical, really.

A Magical Maxi Dresswith Hristina Stoyanova“I had a great fairy tale experience this past weekend while attending a fashion show of a local designer, and I am sure that this is all thanks to my outfit and the way it made me feel.

The outfit was something much different from my daily outfits. The moment I entered the amazing venue, I felt like a queen, and with this maxi skirt, I really moved like one.

I was confident, happy, and proud of myself. I attracted the attention of the people around me. Men treated me like a queen, women made compliments about my dress and, surprisingly, I was gifted a diamond by a jewelry company that was sponsoring the event. Extraordinary outfits attract extraordinary feelings and experiences. It is truly amazing what a beautiful maxi dress can do! Tonya's style formula works.”

5 Months of Style Training with Tonya LeighThink about what you want to attract or create in your life, Heather. The Law of Attraction states that when you are a vibrational, energetic match for what you want, you will have it.

Not really all that helpful as an idea. Is it?

This is why I’ve created a method for shaping your self-image because your self-image is, at its core, an energetic state of being. It’s the “whole mental picture” you have of yourself. It’s the thoughts you have about your appearance, personality, and capabilities. It determines the goals you set and the actions you take.

But most importantly, all of that adds up to a vibration that either attracts or repels what you have in your life.

That’s why I’ve said The Style Experience is the beginning of your personal renaissance.

If personal development has never really “resonated with you”, the Style Experience is for you.

If you desire to embody the truest version of yourself, to live as her now, the Style Experience is for you.

If you love the idea of the Law of Attraction but the practice feels hard or inconsistent, the Style Experience is for you.

If you want to feel more confident and polished on a daily basis, the Style Experience is for you.

If you just want to have more fun with clothes and make getting dressed in the morning one of the easiest and most fun parts of life, the Style Experience is for you.

Style goes so much deeper than the clothing - or it doesn’t have to be that deep at all. In the Style Experience, you get to shape your vibration and your experience of style from the ground up.

Look in the mirror at some point today and ask yourself, “Is that woman a match for my dreams?” If you said “Yes, and… her style needs a serious elevation”, then I hope to see you in the Style Experience. We’re starting soon.

RSVP FOR THE STYLE EXPERIENCEWhat Are Your Clothes Attracting?Your clothes are a magnet for the people, experiences, and results in your life. Are they the only deciding factor? Of course not but they matter so much more than you realize. Find out what your clothes are attracting in this week’s podcast.

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Listen to the Full Episode:We can co-create feelings with the material world, as to your style standards!What is your minimum style standard? If you don’t know yet, this is the perfect episode for you. Setting a standard for yourself in so many areas of your life is important, including your style standard. Maybe it is lip gloss and mascara before leaving the house, or never wearing sweats. One of mine is, spoiler alert, hoodies. Hoodies are great and many women can really rock a great hoodie. But they just are not my style nor part of my style standard. Style standards vary widely depending on a number of factors such as cultural norms, personal preferences, and current fashion trends. But your everyday style standard is focused on your expression of YOU. Styling what you wear helps boost confidence and a positive self-image. You want someone to see you, your style, and know it expresses your unique authentic self. This is the very reason why I emphasize style and I advocate it. If you’re curious to know more about how you can start elevating your style standards, be sure to check out The Style Experience with me while you listen to this week’s episode!What You Will Discover with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: 0:00 - Intro * 0:30 - Little things that count * 1:25 - How do I decide what to wear * 3:07 - What are my style standards? * 3:57 - The importance of consistency * 5:09 - The impact of your “I am” statements * 6:11 - How to create your style standards * 8:34 - How to raise your style standards * 9:27 - How style is essential in boosting your confidence and self-respect * 12:09 - Reasons why you should consider having your style standards * 15:53 - How to define your purpose QuotesConnect with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: FREE Download: Self-Image Manifesto* * *Join: The Style Experience* * Follow me on *Instagram * Find me on Facebook * Subscribe on Youtube * Watch me on TikTok DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:Want to know one of the fastest ways to raise your self-image? It's to raise your standards. Specifically, your style standards. And that's what we're talking about in this episode, so let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Good morning my friends. This is my favorite time of the day. I'm recording this at 6:54 AM, and it's quiet, there's no one in the house, and I'm enjoying a cup of coffee. I just turned the jazz down that was playing in the background so I could record this. And to me, this is pleasure. This is luxury. It really is the simple things. Give me a quiet morning where I can ease into my day and a good game of pickleball and all is well in the world.

After I finish my coffee, I'm going to go get dressed, and when I'm getting dressed there are a few things that guide my choice in what I put on. One is I think about what is on my agenda for the day. So a great example is yesterday I was going to go look at apartments with my daughter, and I wanted to get my mile in, and I had a meeting. So three very different vibes. One more active, one professional, and then one just personal running errands, doing things.

And so I had to keep all of that into account when I was deciding what I was going to wear. I needed a multipurpose outfit. The other thing that I keep in mind is how do I want to feel? And I'm not talking about physical feelings in terms of comfort. I want us always to be comfortable in our clothing. But I'm talking about emotionally. How do I want to feel today? Because we can co-create feelings with the material world. We can use our style and our environment to help us create new feelings.

Which is why I'm an advocate of changing our environments. I'm an advocate of changing our style. I'm an advocate of taking action to shake things up, because it gives you new perspectives, it allows you to access new thoughts, and it's a quick and easy way to shift energy in the moment.

And finally, I think about my style standards, which is what we are talking about in today's episode. I want you to think about your standards for how you show up. Do you have standards? Do you have a set of operating principles that you live by that make it easy to make decisions in terms of how you dress yourself, how you carry yourself, how you communicate? These sets of operating principles also help you to see yourself in a way that serves you. They help you to elevate your self-image.

Now, when it comes to style standards, they're very personal. What my standard is may not be your standard. And that's the point of style, style is to be original, it's to figure out who you want to be and to express that on purpose. And having style standards is a way for you to consistently do that.

Let's talk about consistency for a moment, shall we? Because what you consistently do is consistently revealing the story that you have about yourself. Years ago I read Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch. Such a good book, have you all read it? It's, like, a trilogy of books.

However, and I'm paraphrasing here, so this is not going to be verbatim, I remember reading a passage in that book that explained so much to me and why I had struggled for so long, because in the book basically he writes that the reason why you feel stuck or the reason why you can never get traction and momentum is because of your "I am" statements always changing. So remember, "I am" are the two most powerful words you will ever speak, because they are shaping your identity and you always going to seek to live within your identity.

And so for example, if you are practicing "I am peaceful, I am peaceful" and then something comes along and you start practicing "I am overwhelmed, I am overwhelmed" you are canceling "I am peaceful" with "I am overwhelmed". And so when your "I am" statements are always changing and in opposition of each other, you can't get momentum. Because again, you're always going to act to prove yourself true.

So what does this have to do with style? Well, everything. Because when you start to become consistent in your style and how you're showing up, it's a powerful force to reflect back to you how you see yourself. So you can do this in a way that is unconscious, you can have a style standard where you don't have any standards and you're just reinforcing stories about yourself that don't serve you, or you can have purposeful style standards. A standard of how you will show up that is consistent, that will consistently offer you a new story and change your self-image.

Let me give you an example. When I first started my business and I was a baby coach, I quickly realized that I had the luxury of working from home. And back in those days, no one would see you because we didn't have Zoom, we weren't doing video calls, it was in the good old days where you had telephone, like tele-seminars. So I was on the phone with my clients all day. And so I got into this rut of not getting dressed. I was just wearing my PJs all day.

And at first I thought, "Oh wow, this is the secret, this is the answer to everything." And then quickly I realized, "Tonya, I don't like how you're showing up." And so I set a new standard for myself, and it was a simple standard. Each day you are going to get up and get dressed as if you are going to the office. And that one style standard elevated my self-image.

It caused me to show up intentionally, it elevated my energy, I felt better about myself, I felt more confident, and I felt like a pro. I felt like someone who was saying to herself, "Your business matters, your clients matter, and you matter. So stop being lazy, stop looking like a bum and let's get up and get dressed, and put our best self out to the world, but more importantly put your best self out there for you."

Now, I can't prove this, but deep down I know the answer. I don't need to prove it because I know it for myself and I know it for my clients. But that one style standard helped me to create a successful business.

One of my coaching tools that I teach within the School of Self-Image is about raising your standards. In fact, if you're in the membership, there is an entire class just on this topic. I've watched thousands of members at this point change their lives by changing their standards. Getting very clear on what they expect from themselves. Because life doesn't give you want, life gives you what you expect.

And when you raise what you expect from yourself, life will meet you there. Life will meet you at a level of your standards. And your style is a part of that. And style is important, my friends. That's why I'm doing a whole five-month coaching experience just on this topic alone. When a woman raises her style standards, the standards of how she shows up in the world, what she wears, how she communicates, how she carries herself, all of which are a part of her style, it changes not only her perception of herself, her self-image, but it also impacts and influences how other people see her.

And people will treat you the way you expect them to. And clothing is one way for you to tell people, "Here's how I expect to be treated." I mean, when I'm wearing my pickleball outfit, you all, people expect me to go out on that court and play. When I'm wearing a power suit, people expect certain behaviors. They expect a certain mentality. And they often will give you respect that's not even earned, because you're just meeting someone for the first time, but when you show up in a beautiful suit it tells them that you see yourself in a powerful, self-respecting way, and so they're more likely to treat you the way that you're presenting yourself.

Listen, I remember a time in my life where people didn't respect me. People would ignore me. Have you ever had that happen to you, like you're in a group of people and you finally muster up the courage to say something, to express an opinion or to be a part of the conversation, and you speak and it's as if you said nothing. People just keep talking over you. That used to happen to me all of the time. It never happens now.

And I know that a big part of that is because of how I dress. Because back then, I dressed in a way that said, "I don't respect myself. I'm trying to hide. I don't really want to be seen." And so it shouldn't have been so shocking when people didn't see me. When they talked literally right over me. And that's why style is so important, you all.

One outfit, one pair of shoes, one statement necklace, one bold red lip, one haircut, one pantsuit, one pair of jeans, one jacket literally can change your life. Style standards are something that I want every single one of you to consider for yourself, and if you are in The Style Experience, which is my newest program that I'm obsessed with. I cannot get enough of this program. I feel like a kid again, it's so much fun. We opened up The Style Lounge, which is our private group where we are already posting and sharing and celebrating, and I'm giving feedback. If you're in that experience, we're going to be elevating your standards for how you show up. Because that's why you're there. And if you want to join us, you can go to schoolofselfimage.com/style.

I haven't pushed this program a lot because I intentionally want to keep it smaller, but if you knew how amazing it is you'd want to be in there. But I've only mentioned it on the podcast a couple of times and we've sent out a few emails because I'm excited to work with a smaller group of women on their style and elevating their style and really getting all up in their style. But style standards are something that we're going to be talking about a lot, but it's something that you also can do. And it really comes down to, what is the minimum standard that I'm going to set for myself in terms of how I show up every day? And you can have some exceptions. For me, my exception is if it's the day I start my period or I'm sick, like really sick. Those two days are my days to just literally stay in my PJs all day if I want to.

But other than that, game on. Life, I'm coming for you. I'm going to show up like you are my greatest lover. We are going to dance, we're going to cry, we are going to do all the things that one does with their lover. But that's how I want to treat my life. And so I want to dress for it. I want to dress for the time of my life.

But I also know that it's life and life gets busy, and I don't want to spend hours being consumed with what to wear and how to wear my hair and makeup. So I've just perfected my minimum baseline of what I expect for myself every single day. And the way you can get clear on yours is to think about, "I am a woman who..." And when you think about the version of you who is where you want to be, what is something that she just no longer does in terms of her style, and what is something that she does every single day come rain or shine? I'm a woman who gets dressed every single day. I'm a woman who washes my face every morning and every evening. I'm a woman who doesn't wear hoodies. My team laughs, I'm like, "I don't wear a hoodie that's got, like, writing on it." I also don't do T-shirts with writing.

But that's my style. There's nothing wrong with that. You can rock out a hoodie and I love helping women find their hoodies if that's their style because I think they're fun, it's just not my style. So I know that's part of my standard, I just don't wear hoodies. I don't wear things that I would be embarrassed to be seen in. And that could be a minimum baseline for some of you. Like I'm just not going to wear anything that I would be embarrassed to be caught in. And that might be where you start.

But then you begin to add in new standards. I'm a woman who, at minimum every day, washes my face, puts on a little bit of lip gloss, maybe a little mascara, and a brow. Like, you can have minimum standards for your makeup, minimum standards for your grooming, and minimum standards for your dress. But what is the minimum of what you expect of yourself every day? And what if you just practiced living that out?

"I am a woman who..." fill in the blank. And every day that becomes your practice for your style standards. And don't forget the purpose of why we are doing this. The purpose is to transform and to elevate your self-image, because your self-image is creating your entire life. So raise your standards, raise your self-image.

If you want to dive into elevating your style, raising your style standards, go to schoolofselfimage.com/style, and check out my latest creation, The Style Experience. Have a beautiful week, everyone, and I will see you on the next episode.

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Imagine yourself ten years ago. Circa 2013.

In your mind’s eye, what do you see yourself wearing? (I hear peplum, crop tops, and shorts with suits were hot back then…)

Tag me on Insta @tonyaleigh and show me your decade-old style with #2013andme

Style is a form of expression - but it can be hard to find what feels right … especially if you feel stuck in the current version of you.

That’s why I like to think in terms of “style experiments.”

Style experiments allow you to let go of the pressure to get things right and instead, just try things on.

To experiment with style, all you have to do is stretch yourself a little bit. The goal isn’t to like what you try on. The goal is to express yourself in new ways.

Welcome to The Possibilities Issue. They’re truly limitless…

The only thing that limits us is our own self-image. Let’s let go of what we “know” to make room for possibilities.

Love,

Style is a journey, not a destination.Living a stylish life requires letting go of old ideas, rules, and habits – and trying on new possibilities. Think: designers, outfits, colors, cuts. The goal isn’t to arrive at a perfectly curated wardrobe you want to wear forever.

It’s to travel in style on each leg of this beautiful journey and … to pack for the occasion.

Making Room for a Style Elevationwith Juli Hicks“I spent years studying personal development and always working on the inside while paying little attention to the outside. What I am learning in SOSI is that how you show up matters. It can make a big difference in how you see yourself and in how others see you.

In the past, I’ve always said I'm a ‘plain Jane’ and have no sense of style. I'm now ready to invest in learning all the things to elevate my style with Tonya's help, so while I was at SOSI Desert Live, I signed up for The Style Experience!

The suggested prework from Tonya was to ‘clear out items that no longer fit you - in size or otherwise.’ I didn’t think I had anything to get rid of, as I have no problem clearing clutter and passing things on but I kept hanging on to these, mostly because of cost. Vince, Brooks Brothers, L’agence, and Kate Spade. Now is the time. I’m so ready for this style elevation!”

The Style ExperienceThe Style Experience is an unforgettable adventure starting March 4, 2023 where a group of women and I will create our “next style chapter” together. You’ll build your personal style manual for living, thinking, and dressing like a stylish woman. There will be 5 virtual style retreats, monthly style sessions, and weekly style inspiration that will revolutionize how you see yourself. You will become a stylish woman on a whole new level. Watch out for another invite from me next week if this speaks to you.

My 6-Month No Shopping UpdateMy latest style experiment has been the most enlightening of all: a 6-month No Shopping Challenge.

It’s been a hard one, Heather!

I’ve wrestled with denying myself the dopamine hit that comes from swiping a credit card on a brand new purchase.

I’ve had to face my own shopping impulses that can lead to mindless spending.

I’ve studied how scarcity can impact our choices.

And I’ve noticed how abundance often doesn’t equate to spending more money.

I’m feeling appreciation and excitement for this much-needed reset, and I still have two months to go. This no-shopping challenge has been such a beautiful and difficult experience.

Let me tell you all about it in today’s podcast.

LISTEN TO THE PODCASTShop your own closet this week.Surprise! There’s nothing in the bag this week to honor my 6-Month No Shopping Challenge. Instead, I’d love for you to push the reset button with me (if only for a day) and dig deep into your closet to find something “new” you can bring back to life. Maybe it can be part of your style experiment this week. I know there’s a gem in there just waiting to be showcased.

Show me what you find on Instagram. Tag me @tonyaleigh.

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Listen to the Full Episode:In this episode of School of Self-Image, host and Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh, shares insights about the return on investment (ROI) of style. She shares how she has noticed improvements in her physical and mental health since moving to a new environment and how her friend has seen a tenfold increase in her business as a result of investing in style. Instead of spending a lot of money on expensive clothing to appear wealthy, the ROI of true style is emotional. It will make the wearer feel abundant, confident, powerful, and great in their own skin. The conversation also discusses how investing in designer items, such as a handbag, can help change the wearer's self-image. It can provide evidence for what they want to believe about themselves and be life-changing. The speaker suggests that action alone isn't enough and that the action needs to be taken with purpose in order to change thoughts about oneself. Finally, the conversation wraps up by discussing how feeling better, more confident, and more empowered will also have an emotional ROI.What You Will Discover with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: 0:00:01 - "Exploring the ROI of Style: A Conversation with Tonya Leigh" * 0:06:32 - Exploring the Impact of Style on Our Lives * 0:09:44 - "The Importance of Taking Care of Yourself: How Our Appearance Affects Our Perception" * 0:11:25 - The ROI of True Style: Leveraging the Brain to Get a Return and Make Our Lives Better * 0:17:26 - "The Power of Intentional Dressing: How Investing in Your Style Can Lead to Financial and Emotional Returns" * 0:19:48 - "The Power of Style: How to Use Attention to Your Advantage" * 0:24:11 - The Power of Professional Style: How to Elevate Your First Impression and Increase Your Net Worth * 0:26:37 - "The Power of Elevating Your Status Through Style" * 0:28:45 - "The Power of Style: How to Make Lasting Impressions and Transform Your Self-Image" QuotesConnect with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: FREE Download: Self-Image Manifesto* * *Join: The Style Experience* * Follow me on *Instagram * Find me on Facebook * Subscribe on Youtube * Watch me on TikTok DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:Return on investment or ROI is a financial term used to describe the benefit an investor receives in relation to their investment cost. And do you know what has given me a great ROI? Style. And that's what we're talking about in today's episode, so let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello, my beautiful friends. How are you doing? I just came back from the most beautiful walk with Fonz. We were walking around the neighborhood where I'm renting this townhome, and I was telling him I feel so good in all the ways, but really physically. I don't know if it's the altitude. I don't know if it's the humidity. I don't know if it's just being in a different location, but I am feeling so good here in Charlotte. Before I left, I had been dealing with this cough for almost two years while I was in Colorado. And since I've been in Charlotte, within one week, that cough started to clear up and I'm just full of energy.

And this is why I teach about the environment to my friends because the environment matters. Not only can you heal emotionally in certain environments, but you can also heal physically. Our environments have the ability to make us stronger or weaker, and sometimes we have to play around and experiment with different environments to see which environment we feel best in. Now, yes, you got to change your thoughts too, but it's crazy how putting yourself in new environments gives you access to new thoughts. So that is not what this podcast is about today, but I just wanted to share that with you.

Today, I want to talk with you about the ROI of style. I don't know if you saw it, but I announced my brand-new program called The Style Experience. We are starting on March the 4th. This is the first program that I've created in almost, what, two and a half years. And it's been a long time in the making. I've had women for years who want me to teach them specifically about style. Now within the School of Self-Image membership, we talk about style and we have some classes on style, but I've never gone as deep into style as I will be doing in this experience.

And I'm calling it an experience because it's going to be very experiential. It's not going to be me just teaching, but it's going to be you taking that content and going out and experimenting so that you can figure out your unique expression in the world. And since we launched the program, we've had some women email us and say, "I really want to join, but it's very expensive." And they're not wrong. It is very expensive. And I thought long and hard about how to price this experience. And one of my dear friends whom I've worked with around style, she told me, she was like, "You should charge at least 25K for this." And the reason why she said that is that she has experienced the ROI of elevating her style and working with me and helping her to do so. She has more than 10X-ed her business. Her life has just gotten better and better. And she attributes style to be a big reason why that's happened.

And I know in my own personal life that as I have elevated my self-image and therefore my style because they're both interconnected, it's had such a positive impact on every area of my life. And so it's expensive. But I want you to trust that there is a return on your investment when you invest in not only your style, which is what we'll be doing within The Style Experience but also using style to elevate your self-image, which is my ultimate MO always. Because I know when you change how you see yourself, what you see begins to change. How the world treats you begins to change. What the universe brings to the table for you begins to change in a positive way if you are seeing yourself in a more positive way.

So when I started to consider not only how in-depth this experience is and the amount of time we are all going to be spending together and the level of coaching that I'm going to be doing within this experience, but I also started to consider the ROI of investing in your style. The investment that I decided upon was a no-brainer. I feel so good about it and I want the women investing in this experience to feel good about it too. So if you want to come and join us within The Style Experience, all you have to do is go to schoolofselfimage.com/style. You can read all about it. We start on March the 4th, and I cannot wait to see you in our Style Lounge.

Okay, so let's talk about the return on investment of your style. And it's always interesting to me when I do these types of podcast episodes what the reaction is. So last week I did an episode on what are your clothes attracting? And I received many, many messages on Instagram of women saying, "Love today's episode. I agree. I've noticed that since I've stopped dressing up, my life has gotten worse." Others of you shared, "I've noticed that since I started dressing up, my life is getting better."

And then some of you were a little angry and you were telling me that it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what you wear. What matters is what's on the inside. And I agree 100%, but the outside is a reflection of the inside. And what's on the inside will be revealed in some way to the outside, and it's going to be revealed in the clothes you choose to wear. It's also revealed in the state of your home, in the state of your relationships. The outside world reflects the inner world. And the inner world is just a collection of thoughts and feelings. And those thoughts and feelings will drive what you decide to wear, what you invest in, how you keep your home. And that is a reflection of how you think and feel. And it's no different with our style.

It's interesting that we can be so easily triggered about an episode that says what you wear matters. But if I were to say to you your home matters. If I were to say to you what you eat matters, how you keep your kitchen matters, the state of your office matters, a lot of you wouldn't agree with that. Some of you that are upset that I say your clothes matter wouldn't be offended if I said, "Hey, listen, your home matters." And why is that? Why is it that we as women don't want to accept, for the most part and I think it's a very small minority, but still that what we wear matters? And do you know why it matters? Because you matter.

When I think about someone who cares for their home, and they care for their home because that's where they live, that's where they spend their time, it's where they raise their families, it's where they make memories. Maybe they work from there, but they care for their home. They want to dress it up. They want to decorate. They want to keep it clean. They want to present it well to the world out of a place of respect. Now, there are people who do that to impress the Joneses, just like there are people that dress up to impress other people. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about you doing it because of how it makes you feel. There's a big energetic difference.

And I want us to think about style in the same way. When you care about you, you want to take care of you. And you do that through eating well, exercising, getting enough sleep, delighting in pleasure, getting enough rest. There's so many different ways that we can take care of ourselves physically. And then there's also taking care of our appearances because we care for ourselves and we care about how we present ourselves to ourselves and how we present ourselves to the world. We know that it matters. I'm always fascinated when people say to me, "Yeah, but what's inside matters." And as I just said, I agree with that. But if I'm looking at you from across the room, I don't know what's on the inside. I can't look at you and say, "Oh, she's got a good heart. Oh, she respects herself." I don't know that. I'm just looking at your appearance.

And so what the brain does is that we do look at someone and we make judgments based on how they are carrying themselves. Now in Nirvana, if we were all super enlightened, we would not do that. We would not be judging. But that is not 99.999% of us. We are all human beings. And if you're not on a high horse, you will admit that you do it too. If you are looking at a woman, let's just take an example. Let's say you're at the airport and you see a woman and she has dirt all over her face. She has holes all in her clothes, and she has no shoes, you're going to have a story about her. Now, it doesn't mean that you're judging her in a bad way, but it might be, "Wow, she must have a really hard life. Maybe I can do something to help her. Does she need help?" You'll look at her appearance and you'll create a story because that's what we do. That's what the brain does.

So all I'm suggesting is let's take that fact of life and let's leverage it for us. Let's leverage it to get a return to make our lives better. So when I think about the ROI of style, I used to think that it meant buying a lot of expensive clothing to appear to be wealthy, to appear to be high status, to appear fill in the blank of how you want to be perceived. And when you believe that, what ends up happening is you go out and you spend a lot of money. You may go into debt trying to appear a certain way. And all the while you don't feel like that on the inside. And so it ends up backfiring on you because the ROI of true style is emotional. It will feel good. It will make you feel abundant and confident and great in your skin. It will make you feel powerful. It will make you feel a positive emotion when you will go about this process in the right way.

So it's not about investing a lot of money into things out of a place of scarcity and not enoughness because that's never going to work. You can't get to abundance through scarcity ever. A Gucci or Chanel handbag isn't going to change your life unless you change how you see yourself. Now, for some people investing in Gucci or Chanel will allow them to change their self-image. And I know that happened for me. I spent so many years thinking that I first of all couldn't afford a designer handbag. Then I went to, once I could afford it, that it was impractical. It was frivolous. To I'm not good enough. To, if I go into the store, they're going to think I'm a fraud. For sure they're going to call me out. They're going to see that a woman like me doesn't belong in a store like that. And so when I finally mustered up the courage to go in and buy a designer handbag, it was life-changing.

Now, at the end of the day y'all, it was just a handbag. And as much as I love handbags, I really do. I think a handbag can make an outfit. I don't have to have designer handbags. I've been actually looking a lot at vintage bags recently. But for me then, that was the purchase that I needed to make. I needed to make that purchase to debunk all of the beliefs that I had about myself that were born from not-enoughness. I don't have enough. I'm not enough. And so buying the bag without changing those thoughts would just left me as a woman with a designer handbag feeling like she wasn't enough. But I used that bag to provide evidence for what I wanted to believe about myself. I used that bag to help me change my thoughts about myself.

And that's why action alone isn't enough. You have to use the action purposefully to change a thought about yourself. And so starting to believe that I was enough, that I could afford it, that I was a woman of style, that I belonged in a nice store, that was the beginning of an incredible transformation. To the point that I am completely unrecognizable to that woman years ago who walked into a Louis Vuitton store in Aspen. The ROI of that one handbag has been huge, but it wasn't the handbag. It was who I became as a result of buying that handbag.

Now, one could argue that I could have done that without buying a handbag, and that is true, but I'm going to use the material world to help me create what I want to create. It's just like some people will tell me, "But Tonya, you don't have to move. You don't have to change jobs to be happier." And this is true. But why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you place yourself in new environments and give yourself a better shot at it? Why wouldn't you place yourself in those new environments and speed up the process? Now, at the end of the day, we don't need new environments and we don't need handbags to change. But while we're spiritual beings in this physical body in a very material world, why not enjoy it? That's all I'm suggesting.

So the emotional return on discovering your style is a sign that you've taken the time to get to know yourself, that you know what you love and what you don't love, and how you feel when you put in the effort. We all know that we feel good when we have taken a shower, we've properly done our hair, maybe put on a little makeup, and chosen an outfit that feels good and looks good. We feel better. I don't know why we want to argue this point, but some of you all love to message me and tell me it doesn't matter. But you can't tell me you don't feel better when you've put in the effort to take care of yourself.

And so when you think about it that way, you're feeling better, you're feeling more confident, maybe you're feeling sexier, more feminine, more wealthy, more fill-in-the-blank. Because we can dress to fuel whatever emotion that we want to have. But a lot of people are waking up feeling bad, feeling anxious, feeling worried, feeling depressed, and they let that emotion choose the outfit of the day, and that just feeds the emotional state. What I'm suggesting is that we choose an outfit to feed how we want to feel, and then when we feel that way, think about how you show up in the world differently. Maybe you have a business. How do you show up in that business? How are you with clients? Are you hiding from Zoom? Are you hiding from your IG stories because you didn't take the time to get dressed for the day? Or are you always ready? You're like, "Pull that camera out. Let's go. I am ready to talk about all the things." And so you can see how having this emotional return can lead to financial returns and huge amounts.

I had one of my members of the School of Self-Image share with me that since she started the membership and she started dressing up intentionally, she's received not one but two promotions within the last 18 months. And she says, "I know it's because of how I'm showing up. I'm getting attention. People are noticing me. People are assuming things about me that they didn't assume before in a positive way." I had another woman tell me that's in the membership that since she started dressing up, she's getting men asking her out on dates. She's like, "I wasn't getting that before." Because our appearances matter. They matter not only to us, but they matter to the world. We live in a world where we see things, and as I said earlier, we make assumptions based off what we see. Let's leverage it and use it for ourselves.

When you invest in your style, you have the ability to grab attention. And I know some of you all are uncomfortable with attention. I was for years and it was all from fear and lack. I was afraid of what people would think if they got to really see me. I felt like I wasn't good enough, and so I would try to hide. And so I was living my life built on a foundation of fear. And when I cleaned that up, I realized, "Bring it. Y'all can look at me. I'll talk. You won't agree with me all of the time, and that's okay. Some people won't like me and that's okay." But I can stand in a room right now with thousands of eyeballs staring at me and hold space for that because now I have a life that's built on enoughness. I know even if I trip and fall on stage, I know even if I stumble with my words, I know if everybody in the audience hates the talk, I'm still enough. Maybe I had a bad performance, but I'm still enough.

So when I hear people say, "I just don't like attention. I don't know why people want so much attention." It really is the energy driving it always. There are people who are seeking attention because they don't feel like they're enough and they need that attention to fuel that. And then there are other people who don't want attention because they feel like they're enough. So I'm not saying it's wrong or right to want or not want attention. That's actually irrelevant because it's the energy underlying it that really matters. I love not being in the limelight. I love being private at home and not being out there, but I also know that I want to share this message, and I don't mind getting on Instagram and getting attention in that way too because it's about something so much more.

And so when it comes to style, you can dress in a way to avoid attention or you can dress in a way to grab it. And I've done both. There are moments in my life where I don't want attention. I want to be able to run into Whole Foods, grab some strawberries, grab some creamer, and get out of there. Now, I'll still dress with intention, meaning I'll still choose an outfit that feels good to me, but most of the time what I enjoy wearing, what I love to see myself in are outfits that grab attention.

I think I mentioned it on the podcast. If not, I was sharing it in the membership, but Fonz and I were at the airport and the TSA agent was like, "You guys look like you're from Hollywood." And I didn't wake up that morning thinking, "I want everybody's attention." But the clothes that I choose, especially in a place where people don't really dress up, I could see how people would look at it and be like, "Oh, these people are fancy." Even though my outfit wasn't that fancy, it was pretty casual actually, but I had detail. I had a hat on. Fonz was dressed really well, and it grabbed attention.

Once you have that attention, you can decide how you want to use it. You can use it for good. You can use it to help you get promotions. You can use it to help you get jobs. You can use it to better your life. It's not a bad thing. Now, if you need the attention, that can become a problem. But if you are dressing in a way to honor yourself and it happens to grab attention, then use that for you. Don't back down from being true to yourself because you're afraid of having attention. Instead, do the work to be comfortable with that attention because as you expand, as you grow, your willingness for attention for bigger emotions are also going to expand and grow. So I'm inviting you to step into it.

The ROI of style also impacts your first impressions and making a great first impression matters. I often think if you joined my membership and the very first call that you had with me, I showed up late, my hair was a mess, I have a terrible background, I'm in a T-shirt, what would you think? I have a friend who has her own business and she often does this, and I'm perplexed by it. She does it in the name of being laid back and feminine and going with the flow, and I just see it as unprofessional.

And we talk about this. I see this as her not caring for her clients enough to be on time, to put in the effort to present her best self. And I feel like she's doing not only them a disservice, but her. And I know if she were to elevate this one area, it would have such a positive impact on her business because you only get one chance to make a good first impression. So if your first impression is someone who's late, who doesn't present herself well, who acts like she doesn't care, people will remember that. What do you want people... This is a great question. What do you want people to think about you when they first meet you? And that answer right there will inform how you should dress.

The other ROI of style is style has the ability to help you display a certain level of status. Now, I know this may ruffle some feathers, but it is true 100%. And why not use this for you? Now, some of you all may not care to be seen as high status, but what I know from some of the women that I'm working with, you're trying to grow your business. You are trying to increase your net worth. You're wanting to attract quality men. You're wanting to place yourself in quality environments, and therefore it's important that you match the energy of that of which you want.

And style has the ability to help you do that. I have had doors open for me based on how I showed up. Not only in my clothing, but in how I presented myself. Because you see, style isn't just about what you wear. It is about how you communicate, your body language, your conversational skills. And so when you learn to elevate those things, you will be seen as a person who has high status. And don't be surprised when doors start to open for you.

I will never forget being in Monaco one of the very first times and having conversations with many different people. And there was this one particular gentleman that I was having a conversation with, and I was talking with him about my love of luxury. And I had studied it enough that I knew a lot of the bigger umbrella brands and the companies that fell underneath. I knew the CEOs. He could tell I had done my research. And after that conversation, I get a call from him and he asked me if I wanted to be a part of the Monaco Luxury Network. It was a think tank that he was putting together at the time. And he was like, "I'll fly you back out here if you will consider being the ambassador in America for this think tank."

And so I flew back out and I ended up being in the Prince of Monaco's office thinking, "How did this country bumpkin get in this room?" And not only that, most of the conversation was in French. And I would've never ever been invited into that room had I not presented myself well, meaning I had nice clothing on. And when I say nice, it was not expensive. I didn't have a lot of money at the time, but it was well-styled. Because listen, y'all style does not mean expensive clothing. I know a lot of people who have a lot of money and they have no style. They try, but they have no style. They think style is wearing a bunch of designer logos. And to me, that is the opposite of what I believe style to be. But I did present myself well, I was well-spoken, I was confident, and I dressed in a certain way that I know was a big reason why I got invited to be a part of that experience.

So style helps you to make incredible first impressions, but it also helps you to make lasting impressions. A strong sense of style makes you more memorable. It could be a bold red lip. It could be wearing your hair slicked back in an elegant way. It could be a glitzy pair of shoes or an amazing scarf worn in an interesting way. But finding your style and making it you makes you more memorable and you deserve to be remembered.

So when you think about the energy that you will receive when you, number one, take the time to get to know your style, which is about figuring out what you love and what you don't love, and you start to choose things that feel good on you, that you feel like, "Yes, finally what I'm wearing reflects who I really am." And you start to show up in the world in a way that's in alignment, you can see how the return is immense. The confidence, the respect, the energy that you will be embodying will be returned to you because it's like a boomerang. What you throw out always comes back. And yes, you can use style to throw out bigger energy.

And if you want me to help you to do it, my friends, come join us within The Style Experience. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/style and I will see you inside. And I will see you on next week's episode. Have a gorgeous week, everyone. Cheers.

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Looks can be deceiving.You may see a well-dressed, well-groomed woman and think, “Oh, she definitely loves herself.”

But that’s not always the case.

Here’s a better way to spot a woman who has her self-love game dialed in.

Watch how she protects herself. Look for how she takes a stand for herself. Observe how she holds herself.

Case in point.

I just boarded a flight and saw a woman politely tell someone “no” who wanted to trade seats. She didn’t drop into people pleasing and deny her desires.

She delivered this “no” with quiet confidence & a degree of kindness that told me, “Yep, she loves herself.”

Let’s exercise those self-love muscles daily. Trust me, they get stronger.

Welcome to the Self-Love Issue. It’s truly the core of a beautiful life.

There can be no happy ending to an unhappy journey.It seems so obvious when you hear it but as we know, hindsight is 20/20. If you string together a series of unhappy days, does it add up to a happy life? I don’t think so. The secret to getting everything you want is to enjoy the journey. Trust me on this one.

On Being All of Youwith Darnell Collier“I was working through health issues (not 1 not 2 but 4 strokes). I lost a son, a daughter, all of my confidants, my Husband, and all of my siblings that I grew up with. I felt horrible but then I stumbled upon Tonya and looked at the beauty that surrounded her and it touched my soul and moved me back to life. Her voice was like an angel in the wind, calling to me and so I leaped.

I went from a size 16/18 to a size 6/8. For the first time in my life since I was 8 years old, I am not someone's mother, caretaker, or wife. The light has been turned on and I am so happy and full of life now. My entire being has been changed.”

Give Yourself the Gift of Self-LoveDo you need a little guidance in the self-love department? I think we all do at times.

Today is the last day to join the School of Self-Image.

This month, within the School of Self-Image membership, our focus is all about self-love…

But not in the way that you may think.

We’re focusing on the relationship you have with your goals. Because when you decide to accomplish something you’ve never done before, your thoughts about that goal will reveal whether your relationship with yourself is loving or cold…

Confident or full of doubt…

Supportive or destructive…

How do you treat yourself when you make a mistake?

How do you treat yourself when you’re down? How do you celebrate when you win?

These are the REAL measures of self-love. Kindness. Support. Encouragement. BOUNDARIES. And of course, sky-high standards (because yes, you can!)

I encourage you to join us. I can’t imagine living an extraordinary life full of joy WITHOUT this month’s class.

Truly. You should be here.

JOIN SCHOOL OF SELF-IMAGEMy Secret Productivity HackMy accomplishments from 2022 truly floor me. As you practice this self-image work, you become stronger, more effective, and more confident about every part of your life.

And you know what, Heather? Some of my biggest accomplishments were measured in free time, deeply enjoying my family, revisiting my hometown and seeing it through new eyes, and elevating my self-care routine.

Here are a few special screenshots of these beautiful life goals and dreams accomplished.

(I took them from the Behind-the-Scenes video footage and classwork that’s brand new this month within the School of Self-Image.)

And if you want to know the thread that runs through my entire life - my secret productivity hack that allows me to get all of this accomplished with ease and joy, then be sure to tune into this week’s podcast.

My Secret Productivity HackLISTEN TO THE PODCAST// TheEDIT

A weekly digital magazine by the School of Self-Image

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Listen to the Full Episode:In this episode of the School of Self-Image, host Tonya Leigh reports good news for those who have been following her moving drama. Her things arrived and she is grateful. She shares how her mind can work in funny ways, as she was worried she was scammed after reading forums about people who had been scammed by movers. She encourages her community to focus on what they want and not take on other people's stories to avoid being a mess. In the end, her things arrived, in their completeness.

Tonya Leigh recently took on a six-month no shopping challenge and it was inspired by her realization that often when people make more money, they spin out of control and fill their lives with more and more things. She found that what people are really after is a feeling and that buying things does not necessarily create those feelings. She created a Style Experience program to help women get clear on what they want and how they want to show up in the world. In the program, they will engage in virtual style days, coaching calls, and the Style Lounge where the speaker will provide feedback and inspiration.

Tonya discusses the importance of clothing and the effect that it can have on how one views themselves and how others see them. Everything is energy, and one's clothes are no different. According to the Law of Attraction, people will be attracted to those with similar dress styles. The speaker used to dress in scrubs and sweatpants to hide her body, but she changed when she discovered the Style Experience, which is a luxurious experience that helps people discover their unique style and how to express it.

What You Will Discover with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: 0:00:00 Exploring the Power of Self-Image and Style * 0:02:45 Reflection on Moving Day: A Conversation with Fonz and My Mom * 0:04:15 The Role of Shopping and Clothes in Our Lives * 0:09:28 The Impact of Your Clothes on Your Energy and Attraction * 0:11:53 Dressing on Purpose: How Clothing Can Impact Your Mental and Emotional Processes" * 0:18:11 The Power of Professional Style: How Dressing for Success Can Impact Your Life * 0:19:58 Attracting People and Opportunities Through Your Style Highlights*I was recently on a podcast with my friend Stacey Bayman. She has a great podcast called Make Money as a Life Coach, and she brought me on to talk about the effective style in our lives. And she was sharing about when she needs to write copy for a sales page or for her programs. She will get dressed up to the nines, because the energy that she feels can be felt, in her words, because everything's energy, you all it's all connected.

There's a term called enclosed cognition, and basically it's a psychological phenomenon that looks at the effects of clothing on your mental and emotional processes. And they've done studies, one being that they put students in a lab coat and compared their grades with students who weren't in a lab coat. And the students in the lab coat scored higher on the test. And it's because the association of a lab coat symbolizes intelligence, power, confidence, and how that impacts how you think.

And the same goes for clothes. Your clothes have an energy that impacts how you see yourself. And so on one level, those clothes are calling forth an action from you. And at the same time, it's attracting opportunities and people that are attracted to that energy. So at the end of the day, the clothes impact your energy. They impact how you see yourself, but also it's impacting how other people see you.

So come and join us at the Style Experience. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/styleexperience and check out all of the details. So today I have a question for you. What are your clothes attracting? And I want you to sit with that question for a moment and really think about it. Because everything is energy. Everything is attracting certain things to it. It's why certain people gather in certain places. There is an energy there that calls like energy towards it.

We're going to be having virtual style days along with coaching calls. We're going to have the Style Lounge, where I'm giving feedback around style and sharing stylish inspiration. And so if you have not checked this out, it's going to be a very high end, luxurious experience where you are going to elevate how you show up in the world. And you are going to discover your unique style and how to express that, not only in how you dress, but in how you carry yourself and what you choose.

QuotesConnect with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: FREE Download: Self-Image Manifesto * *For the first time ever, join: The Style Experience* * Follow me on *Instagram * Find me on Facebook * Subscribe on Youtube * Watch me on TikTok DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:Look down and check out what you're wearing right now and answer this one question, what is your outfit attracting? That's what we're talking about in today's episode, so let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello, my beautiful friends. Today I have some good news to report. For those of you who have been following my moving drama and you've been reaching out on Instagram and Facebook to see if I received my things, they arrived, and I am so grateful. For a moment, I thought I had been scammed. And it's so fascinating how the mind works and how people work because what happened is I was sharing with my community during one of our virtual cocktail parties that I had not received my things, and I was like, it's two weeks late and they keep putting us off. And so, one of my members sent me this Instagram story or live, whatever it's called, of this couple describing something similar happening to them and how it was a whole scam. And so, then I start digging into moving scams.

Seriously, you all. One night I was awakened by my crazy brain at 2:00 AM, and my brain thought it was a good idea to go on Reddit and just read all of the forums about people who have been scammed by movers. And that took up three hours of my life. So I can tell you about all the potential scenarios of what a moving scam looks like.

But through all of that, focusing on what I didn't want and taking on other people's stories, I was a little bit of a mess for a couple of days. I was like, oh my goodness, I've lost all my things. But then they finally arrived. And not only did they arrive, but they arrived in their completeness. We had three broken wine glasses and my vacuum cleaner got broken. Other than that, everything was there, everything was together. Everything was as it should be.

Fonz was the cutest during all of this because he's the one that arranged for these movers. So he was super nervous that we all were going to give him a hard time if our things didn't arrive. And he was right, we would have, but I felt so bad for him. He was pacing for a week. And on the day, when the movers came and he was here helping them, I've never seen someone so grateful. In fact, all day, he was like, "This is the best day ever." We went to dinner that night with my mom and he just said, "Nana, wasn't this the best day?" He was so excited.

Anyway, we have our things. We are getting settled into our town home. This is where we'll be living over the next year plus as they build our house. So we're trying to get settled in. I'm still feeling a little unsettled because we've had people here nonstop. My mom and my dad came, which they're super helpful, but then my COO just flew in for this week for us to get some work done because I was thinking when we scheduled this that I would've been in this town home for a couple weeks so I would be ready. Well, it turns out the universe had different plans, but all is well, my friends. I always say these are good problems to have and I'm so, so, so grateful.

I also want to say thank you to everyone who reached out last week after the episode that I did about my no shopping six month challenge. I had some of you share that you feel like you have a shopping addiction. Some of you told me that this is something that you've been thinking about doing for a long time and you finally got the push to do it. Some of you express that you have no interest in no shopping, but all of the messages I appreciated so much.

I had one person reach out on Instagram, I believe it was, or maybe it was Facebook, I can't remember. But they said, "Why don't you just tell people the truth, that you had a bad year in business and you can't afford to shop like you were doing?" And I laughed because that could not be further from the truth. We had our best year in business. And I'm at a time in my life where I can afford to shop more than I've ever shopped before. And yet this was the time that I decided that I wanted to stop, that I wanted to really assess the role of money, and shopping, and clothes in my life.

And that's what I see happen. I've seen it happen with my friends. I've seen it happen with celebrities. You start making more money and you spin out of control. You lose touch. You start stuffing your life with more and more things. And if you look at the cause of it, it's coming from scarcity. And listen, I'm no different than anyone else. If I did not monitor myself, I know that's what I would do. And that's exactly why I stopped. I was like, "Girl, you're going to be overwhelmed and burdened by things. And just because you can afford it, doesn't mean that you necessarily need to go and do it."

And here's what I want you all to know. At the end of the day, what we are all after is a feeling. And I know we think that things create feelings. If I could just have that dream car, if I could just have that dream house, if I could just have that dream wardrobe, then I would feel abundant, then I would feel happy, then I would feel confident. But listen, that's not necessarily true. I know a lot of people driving their dream cars, wearing their dream clothes, living in their dream mansions and they don't feel the way they want to feel. They're chasing it versus being it. There's a big difference.

And so, I wanted to stop and get into that feeling of abundance, let go of stuff that's holding me back and be intentional. And that's exactly why I decided to do a six month no shopping challenge. This is a lot of the work that we are going to be doing in my upcoming Style Experience. I don't know if you've heard, but I created a unique, one of a kind style. I don't even know if we should call it program because when I say experience, it really is an experience. And I did it because this is something that women have been asking me for a long time.

Getting dressed is something that we do every single day, and it's also helping to create our lives, believe it or not, and I'm going to talk about that in today's episode. I want us to think about what our clothes are attracting. But part of the process is slowing down long enough to consider what you already have, to consider who you're becoming, to ask yourself the deep questions to reveal the next evolution of you. And when you're constantly shopping and stuffing things into your closet, there's no space to really dream about, and think about, and decide on purpose how you show up in the world. And so, a lot of the work that I'm doing on myself personally is taking myself through this Style Experience and defining the next version of me. And I just knew that I needed space to do that. And part of the process is getting rid of a lot of stuff.

I spoke with some of the ladies in the Style Experience and they were sharing with me that they've been letting go of a lot of stuff too. Some of them have let go of 80% of their wardrobe. And so, you can see we have the part of the canvas that's now open for us to play and experiment and really get clear on that next version of ourselves and then to show up accordingly.

I am so excited about this program. It's unlike anything I've ever done before. We're going to be having virtual style days, along with coaching calls. We're going to have the style lounge where I'm giving feedback around style and sharing stylish inspiration. And so, if you have not checked this out, it's going to be a very high-end, luxurious experience, where you are going to elevate how you show up in the world, and you are going to discover your unique style and how to express that, not only in how you dress, but in how you carry yourself and what you choose. So come and join us at the Style Experience. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/styleexperience and check out all of the details.

So today I have a question for you, what are your clothes attracting? And I want you to sit with that question for a moment and really think about it because everything is energy. Everything is attracting certain things to it. It's why certain people gather in certain places. There is an energy there that causes energy towards it. And the same goes for clothes. Your clothes have an energy that impacts how you see yourself. And so, on one level, those clothes are calling forth an action from you. And at the same time, it's attracting opportunities and people that are attracted to that energy. So at the end of the day, the clothes impact your energy. They impact how you see yourself, but also, it's impacting how other people see you.

Everything is energy, including your clothes. And the law of attraction says that like attracts like. So people are attracted to like people. Well-dressed people usually gravitate towards other well-dressed people. And people that aren't well-dressed will gravitate usually to those who aren't well-dressed. It's just how it works.

I remember when I first started to show up on purpose. I started with one black dress. I was known for mostly wearing scrubs, sweatpants, and khakis because I was overweight at the time. I was trying to hide my body and I knew I needed a change. So I invested in one black dress. And I remember putting that on and feeling better, feeling like there was a way out, so to speak. But I also remember wearing that dress around certain people and hearing comments like, "Well, who do you think you are, miss fancy pants?" Because I was no longer resonant with them in how I was showing up. They were used to the version of me that wore the sweatpants and the scrubs. And so, the moment I put effort in, we were no longer alike.

And I continued to dress up more, and more, and more until now I'm known as being someone who's often overdressed. And I've gone into many rooms where people aren't, and that's great. My big thing is just, are you dressing on purpose? Are you dressing in a way to attract the life you want? And so, the way you dress is going to be dependent on the life you want, but I want people to be purposeful. And I know that the life that I want requires that I show up for it. And so, I've noticed this really interesting thing happen. I've had a big impact on people's lives around me. I've noticed some friends, actually, they've started dressing up. They've started getting curious about their style. And it's impacted their lives in big ways.

But people who are successful, they know the power of this. And I want to share two interesting case studies around this, and you're going to see it doesn't necessarily mean that you're dressing up in designer clothing. In fact, I was so mesmerized by this last political campaign in November, the election. And this is not a political conversation, you all, so don't get all upset. This is not about politics, but it is about style and it is about noticing how you can use it for you.

So did you all see the Pennsylvania politician... What was his name? John Federman. He was running for one of the House... I think a House seat. And I was a little shocked to see how he dressed. I mean, he was wearing baggy gym shorts and a hooded sweatshirt. Never saw him in a suit. I personally didn't. But then it made sense to me. He was doing that on purpose. He was dressing like the people that he wanted to vote for him because people would look at him and say, "Oh, wow, he's like us. He's like me. I can trust him, so I'm going to vote for him." Now, I've never sat down and spoken with John Federman, but I think that maybe if I were to do so, that if we're being honest, he'd be like, yeah, that was very purposeful.

Another great example is Barbara Cochran, who built a big real estate empire in New York. She admits that one of the best investments that she ever made was in a $360 coat. And for her, at the time, it was a huge investment because she was broke and she had just accepted a $1,000 loan to start her own real estate company. But she rented out her first apartment and she got the commission from that rental, and it was a $360 check. And so, she ran over to Bergdorf Goodman and she bought a new coat. And she said, "I bought the fanciest damn coat, brown and white herringbone with real pearl buttons, three-quarter length with fur, real fur, not big fur. And I wore that coat for the next three years." That coat allowed her to dress the part of a successful business woman and to project confidence in the real estate industry. And she says, "It was one of the smartest things I could have ever done with my money because in it, I felt powerful." And because like attracts like, powerful people wanted to work with her. She attracted powerful opportunities. And she ended up building an incredible real estate portfolio. And I don't know what her net worth is today, but what I do know is that it started with a $360 coat.

So when you think about what your clothes are attracting, I want you to think about, not only the kinds of people and opportunities that your clothes may be attracting, but more importantly, what are your clothes attracting from you? There's a term called enclosed cognition, and basically, it's a psychological phenomena that looks at the effects of clothing on your mental and emotional processes. And they've done studies, one being that they put students in a lab coat and compared their grades with students who weren't in a lab coat, and the students in the lab coat scored higher on the test. And it's because the association of a lab coat symbolizes intelligence, power, confidence, and how that impacts how you think. And I know this to be true in my own life.

I remember, I'll never forget this day, where I was coaching a client and she was talking about how she was showing up in her life and how she wasn't getting dressed and how she was just feeling like a bum. And this was before video calls. This is when we were talking on the phone. And I remember looking down at myself, you all, and thinking, "How am I going to coach this woman through this?" Because I was just as bad as she was. I was still in my PJs. It was later on in the day. And it was in that moment, I was like, never again. I felt out of a congruence. I felt out of alignment. I was like, I want to show up as the most professional version of me. I want to show up as a woman who owns a million-dollar company, and she's not sitting around with bad breath, knotted hair, and in her PJs at 2:00 PM. She's up. She cares about herself. She cares about her clients enough that she gets dressed. She treats them with respect by respecting herself. And I made it a habit.

From that day on, you will not see me working, looking a mess. I get up, I get dressed. I present my best self, not only to my clients, but to the universe and to myself. And seeing myself that way allows me to produce better work. I'm more productive because I'm treating myself seriously. It impacts how I see myself.

I was recently on a podcast with my friend Stacey Boehman. She has a great podcast called Make Money as a Life Coach. And she brought me on to talk about the effective style in our lives. And she was sharing about, when she needs to write copy for a sales page or for her programs, she will get dressed up to the nines because the energy that she feels can be felt in her words because everything's energy, you all. It's all connected.

So when I'm dressed up and I'm feeling my best, that energy can be felt on the coaching calls that I have. It can be felt, as Stacey demonstrated, in the words that you use. And so, it matters. Style matters because it's attracting things into your life, and it's also repelling things. When I'm dressed a certain way, I will repel people and they're probably people that I don't want in my life. Equally, when I'm dressed a certain way, I'm attracting people. We just want to make sure that we're doing that on purpose. We need to dress in a way that calls forth the behaviors that we want to have, and also attracts the people and the opportunities that we want to have.

For example, if I want to work out, I know if I'm in my workout clothes, those clothes are going to signal to my brain, "Hey, this is what I expect. Let's go. So much easier to work out when you're ready." Equally, when I am dressed in a beautiful dress and a pair of great heels, I'm also saying to the universe, bring me all the luxury. Bring me all the goodness. Bring me all the abundance.

And so, what are your clothes attracting? I want you to think about that version of you in the future, the version of you that has what you deeply, deeply desire. And notice how she's dressing. What is her style? How does she carry herself? How does she do her hair? How does she think about grooming? How does she think about getting dressed? What does her outfit look like? And start aligning with her now because your clothes are attracting people and opportunities into your life. Dress for your dreams, my friends, and attract those dreams to you. Pull them to you, magnetize them to you.

And if you are overwhelmed by style, if you don't even know where to start, if you're feeling uninspired, come join us in the Style Experience. Go to schoolofselfimage.com/styleexperience, and I cannot wait to see you inside. Have a gorgeous week, my friends, and I will see you on the next episode. Cheers.

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Did you ever watch The Oprah Winfrey Show®? As a little girl, I loved it so much that I’d rush home after school just to catch it. My favorite episodes?

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Listen to the Full Episode:Are you aware that the #1 reason why people do shopping is because of emotions?Welcome to today’s episode of the ‘School of Self-Image’ Podcast with host and self-image coach, Tonya Leigh, where personal development meets style. This is a go-to podcast for women who desire to transform their self-image so that they can create mind-blowing results in their lives.Style is my life so shopping was everything to me. Shopping makes us women happy right? But if you’re listening to this podcast, you know that I’m currently having a detox from shopping. I have a challenge to myself that I won’t be buying any stuff for 6 months. 4 months have passed and to tell you honestly, I’m still struggling. I have a bunch of pushback from myself and the people around me. But then here I am, still standing for this challenge of not shopping for 6 months.Aside from giving you the update, I also want to share some of the takeaways and realizations I experience while doing the challenge. And today, I can finally say that shopping is not everything to me! Yes, you heard that right! So if you’re up for this challenge and too curious about what it can do in your life, join me and listen to this week’s episode! What You Will Discover with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: 0:00 - Intro * 0:35 - Life update! * 2:30 - Reasons why you should focus on things you have control with * 3:20 - What’s God's plan? * 3:43 - SOSI: Figuring out what’s working and what’s not for you * 7:53 - Takeaway #1: Some of your friends would think you’re crazy * 9:49 - Takeaway #2: Have a plan when you’re experiencing struggles to break a habit * 11:37 - Takeaway #3: Energy is everything * 12:34 - Takeaway #4: The bigger the challenge, the more likely you might fall along the way * 17:01 - Takeaway #5: Some of your spending decisions come from luck and scarcity * 18:31 - Takeaway #6: Keep your why in front of you * 19:38 - Takeaway #7: It feels good to honor your own words and commitment to the future * 21:56 - Takeaway #8: How to separate abundance from spending * 24:15 - Takeaway #9: It gives me time to realize what my future needs are * 25:38 - Takeaway #10: You learn to maximize the things you already have * 26:51 - Takeaway #11: A space for investing and appreciating assets more QuotesConnect with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: FREE Download: Self-Image Manifesto* * *For the first time ever, join: The Style Experience* * Follow me on *Instagram * Find me on Facebook * Subscribe on Youtube * Watch me on TikTok DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:Around four months ago, I made a decision to not shop for six months. In this episode, I have an update for you of what that challenge has been like for me. Let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hey, my beautiful friends. I am sitting here in an Airbnb still awaiting on my furniture to arrive from Denver to Charlotte. It was supposed to be here two weeks ago. When we booked this moving service they said, "We'll have it to you within a week." Three weeks later, I still don't have my furniture. They keep delaying it.

They keep saying, "Oh, we're going to be there in a couple of days, and then something happens." I don't want to put this energy out into the universe, but I'm starting to wonder if we've been scammed. Now, they told us it's going to be here tomorrow. I will have an update for you all next week as to where in the world is Tonya's furniture.

But until then, I'm so grateful for this little Airbnb that we've been staying in, but we're going to be kicked out tomorrow because they have another reservation. It is an adventure over here. I am so grateful for all of it. I'm especially grateful for the tools that I teach within the School of Self-Image, because if it weren't for those tools, I would be a basket case right now.

But I've remained calm. I'm staying focused. I'm dealing with the things that I can manage and control and letting everything else go, because there's nothing I can do about it. I invite you all to do the same. I mean, that's not what this episode is about.

But I want you all ... When you're in a state of worry, when you're in a state of stress, one of the things that helps me is I write everything down that I'm worried about, and I create two lists, on one side, it's my list, and I move things to that side that I can influence, manage, control with my actions.

For example, I can manage right now without my furniture belongings, I can manage figuring out where we're going to stay next. I can manage calling the company and badgering them every single day asking where's my stuff? If my stuff doesn't arrive, I can manage calling an attorney. Those are things that I can manage. But I don't have control over the furniture right now.

We stress ourselves out when we try to control the things that we don't have control over, our partners, our children, other people. We have to focus on what we have control over. On the other side of the list, I move everything to that side and I call that God's list.

I'm like, "That's in God's hands, God's plan, as Drake would say. I just let that be what it is. I cannot control that." That is how I'm able to stay so calm, my friends, right now with no belongings and all of my things out there somewhere.

But today, I want to talk with you about my six-month no shopping challenge. This is my three-month update on what this has been like for me. About three months ago, I decided that I was not going to shop for six months. I gave myself parameters. I wasn't going to buy anything that goes into my closet.

I can still buy my beauty products if I need them. I can still buy shampoo, like those types of things. I can still buy for other people and I can still buy things that I need for the house, which right now is not a big thing because I don't have a house right now, although that's not 100% true. I'm renting a townhouse that I'm paying for, but we can't live in it because we don't have furniture yet.

I may have to purchase some air mattresses and some sheets and blankets, and we will glamp in the town home. Those were my parameters. Basically I was not going to buy clothes, shoes, accessories, anything that goes into my closet. The reason why I decided to do that is I was starting to be unconscious.

I was just starting to buy things out of habit. I noticed that my closet was getting more and more full and I couldn't find things. I was starting to feel suffocated by stuff. I wanted some space in my life and in my brain to just breathe and assess and use the self-image method to go through my closet.

The self-image method basically is five steps where you assess where you are, what you have, what's working, what's not working. You define where you want to be, so you get clear on what is my wardrobe, what do I want that to be in this particular example. Then you begin to edit, getting rid of stuff, letting go.

From that place, you can begin to look at what's missing? What do I need to add to help me to create what I have defined that I want for myself? Then it's just a process of constant refinement, editing, adding and refining to continuously create that picture that you have for yourself.

For me, when I was assessing my closet, and the way this happened is I walked into my closet one day and I've been traveling a lot, and I just had stuff stuffed in different areas of my closet, and I didn't like how that felt. When you can't find things, it's a sign that you need to stop and assess the things that you have.

I decided to spend some time thinking about how I want my closet to look, what I want my relationship to be with my closet, what I want my relationship to be with spending and investing in my wardrobe. Once I got clear on that, I knew I needed to take a break. I needed to spend some time editing my closet. I needed to spend some time on step three.

I knew this was not going to be just a weekend thing of pulling everything out. I needed to do a detox from shopping and notice what came up for me and what continues to come up for me. I am almost four months in, and it's been really eye-opening and liberating in so many ways.

I wanted to share with you some of my takeaways so far that I've had into this six-month no shopping challenge. The first thing that I noticed is that your friends are going to think you're kind of crazy. When I announced to a couple of my friends that I wasn't shopping, they were confused. They did not understand.

It's probably very similar to the person who is used to partying with their friends and drinking a lot. Then all of a sudden they announced to their friends, "Hey, listen, I'm taking a break from alcohol." Friends are like, "What?" But this is what we do. I don't understand.

It's okay that they're confused. It's okay that they think you're crazy. What's been really fascinating is to watch one of my friends decide to join me on this challenge. She thought I was crazy at first, and then she was like, "I think that I need to do this as well." She started with baby steps. She decided to do a month of no shopping, which is great. It's all about being intentional.

If you need something so badly, then you are a prisoner of it. Really think about that. If you need to shop, if you feel like you can't live a month without shopping, even though you have so much stuff, then where's the freedom in that? There is none.

You are addicted. You are a prisoner of that thing that you need so badly. That was one of the reasons that I wanted to take a break. I was like, "listen, I don't want to need anything so badly that I can't go time without it." But my friends have thought I'm a little crazy. That's okay.

Another thing that I noticed is that the first month was the hardest because if you've been in a habit of just buying whatever, whenever you want, not really thinking about it, and all of a sudden you don't do that, you're breaking that habit. It's going to be super uncomfortable. You're going to notice how often you go into Amazon.

You're going to notice how often you pop into Target just to get a dopamine fix. You're going to notice how many times you go on to Revolve or Ford or whatever your website is and just buy things. Anytime you are changing a habit, breaking a habit, those first 30 days are the hardest. Knowing that ahead of time, you can prepare for it.

You can have a plan for when that voice comes in your head and says, "Hey, this is dumb. Why are you doing this?" That's my other takeaway. You need to have a plan for when that voice pops into your head. You need to have a plan for those excuses ahead of time. I teach this in the Dream Atelier.

It's why so many of my members have such extraordinary results is that they plan for the obstacles. They plan for the excuses. When it happens, they're not like, "Oh, my God. I fell off the wagon." They know that they are going to be tempted to fall off the wagon. They planned for that.

For me, I didn't know exactly what excuses I was going to have because I've never done this before. But I did know that I was going to have them, and I guessed what they might be. Now, the one that I was not expecting was the one that my brain loves to offer me. That is no one will know if you buy anything, because I announced this to my whole community that I was going to have a six-month no shopping challenge for myself.

My brain loves to be sneaky and say, "Listen, if you get that little thing, no one will ever know." But you know what? I'll know, and energy is everything. If I'm sitting around here talking about not shopping for six months, but I'm shopping, then that is incongruence. I always want to be congruent.

Now, that doesn't mean being perfect, my friends, as I'm about to share with you, because I have not been perfect in this. However, it is about telling the truth, sharing my challenges so that I can hopefully inspire you. Now, the other lesson that I've learned is that you're going to fail. The bigger the challenge, the more likely you are to fail along the way.

But that doesn't mean you give up. That doesn't mean that you beat yourself up. It just means that you learn and grow. I have purchased three things since I started this. One I feel really good about. The other two, I don't. I was being sneaky with myself. Let me start with the one that I felt really good about. I felt like it was justified.

Was it last week or two weeks ago? I can't remember. Anyway, I took a quick trip to the Caribbean to meet my friend Brooke. She called me up and she's like, "Girl, I have an extra bedroom and they have a pickleball court." She just had to say pickleball. I'm like, "Okay," because we are living out of an Airbnb right now. It's not like I need to be here. They had a direct flight.

I went on, I booked a flight, me and Vons went down there, and it was such a quick trip, and I just packed a carry-on that when we landed, I said, "Vons, did you grab my tennis shoes?" He was like, "No." I knew that I didn't grab them. I had no tennis shoes and I wanted to play pickleball, and you can't really do it barefoot.

I did purchase a pair of tennis shoes, and I felt really good about it. Two purchases that I didn't feel great about after the fact, because I was just being sneaky with myself is it was my birthday and my daughter had on the cutest, cutest vest. As a side note, one of my commitments this year is walking a minimum of a mile every single day for the whole year.

I have so far completed my mile every single day, and we're into February. With that, I have also decided that once I'm done with the Snow Shopping Challenge, I want to really invest and focus on athletic leisure wear. But something that I wouldn't mind popping into having lunch with the girlfriends, but I also can go for a quick walk. That means comfortable shoes, comfortable clothing, but elevated.

My daughter had on this outfit that was so adorable. It was just that. She had on a cute baseball cap. She had on a pair of ... I want to say maybe aloe leggings with this down black vest. It was just cute the way she put it together. It was my birthday, and I was like, "I'm going to get me a vest."

Not just one vest. I always need a black and a camel or tan vest. I bought two vest and I justified it because it was my birthday. But after the fact, I was like, "Tonya, that was your brain playing tricks on you. That was you breaking the commitment to yourself." I didn't beat myself up. I was so fascinated. I was fascinated not only with how our brains can convince us to do things, but also how we act like we can't live without stuff.

Listen, you all know I love beautiful clothes. I love style. I think style has the ability to transform your life. However, I also know that we can have excuses and sabotage ourselves in the name of certain things, in the name of style, in the name of money, in the name of whatever.

I was just fascinated by the whole thing. I learned from it. I'm like, "Okay. Let's start again. Let's move forward. Let's look to the future. You've got a few more months at that time. Let's go." I can already see how my brain is wanting to convince me to stop this challenge sooner than I had planned. I can see how some of our spending decisions come out of lack and scarcity.

Here's an example. I'm supposed to speak at an event really soon, and my brain is like, "Girl, you can't wear that again. What are people going to think? You need to go buy something new for this event." I'm just watching my brain do this. I'm like, "No. I have plenty of clothes to choose from. I don't need to go and buy new things."

But you can see how that decision is not coming from, "Oh, my God, I'm so excited to invest in a new piece." It's coming from, "Oh, my God, what if someone happens to see me in an outfit that I've worn before and they have things to say?" That's coming from fear and lack and scarcity. I do not want my life nor my wardrobe to be built on that, because I know I'm not going to be happy with the result.

I'm going to end up just stuffing my closet and my life full of things to impress other people. The downside to that is that I won't be impressed because I will know what drove those decisions in the first place. On the flip side, and this has been really helpful for me, it feels good to decide something, commit to it and follow through.

You have to keep your 'why' in front of you. I was in Miami with my friend Brooke and Abriel and some other people, and we were walking around, what's it called, the Design District in Miami. It's all of the She-She stores. It's Chanel, Dior, Eve, Saint Laurent, all the good stores.

Everybody was shopping, some people were buying things. I was so happy to just look. I did not feel at all. I was missing out. In fact, I felt like I was getting so much because visually I was so just happy. I was also happy knowing, number one, that I was honoring my commitment, even though I saw beautiful things. I was like, "Ooh, that looks like me, but not today."

That felt good just knowing I was honoring my word and my commitment. Then it also felt good to know that I was investing in my future. By not spending money mindlessly, that money is going to exist in my future. Therefore, I'm investing in my future. Now, sometimes purchasing that dress or those shoes or that handbag, that can also be an investment in your future.

When it's deliberate and you understand your 'why' and you feel great about it, the energy of that investment can have a positive impact on your future. But if you're buying things mindlessly and putting your money and depreciating assets and then feeling bad about it, that's not how a wealthy woman thinks and spends her money. She's very deliberate.

It's interesting. I was just having a conversation with one of the members within the School of Self-image, and she was talking about in her effort to be wealthy, she finds that she spends a lot of money because she thinks that's what her wealthy version would do. I'm fascinated by that because the wealthier I become, the less I just want to spend on stuff.

I realize how so much of my spending in the past has been out of lack, has been because, "Ooh, I may not have money in the future. Let me spend it right now. Let me enjoy it right now." Or coming from that place of, "Oh, my goodness. I need to look amazing at this event to impress other people." Do you and do people even care?

I want to impress myself, which for me is always showing up as the best version of myself and looking put together, feeling put together. But that doesn't mean I have to go out there and spend a lot of money. I have things in my closet right now where I can do that. This experience for me has also been about separating out abundance from spending, which I've known for a long time. They're two separate things.

A lot of times my clients want to put them together. They want to say, oh, well, being wealthy means spending a lot of money and spending a lot of money means that you believe you're wealthy. That's just not true. There are a lot of people out there spending a lot of money, and they are feeling so full of lack and scarcity.

I've actually felt so abundant during this experience. Here's why. Many times we are always off to the next thing. Let me get that. Let me go here. Listen, I love a big extraordinary goal. For those of you within the membership, you know that that's one of the things that we do. But the purpose of that goal and for having that guide is to grow you and to give you direction. It's not to always chase and not appreciate where you are.

In fact, I think the best way to create your goal is to appreciate where you are right now, because that is the energy of your future. You need to be practicing it now. But for me, the abundance that I've been feeling from this no shopping challenge is about appreciating what I already have.

When you are constantly buying new things, you're not most likely appreciating the things that you already have. That's what I needed a reset with. I was like, "I have so many beautiful clothes, shoes. I don't have a closet full of designer handbags, although I love them." I really do love a great handbag. "But I just want to appreciate and enjoy the ones that I already have."

By doing that, I have really felt the abundance and the appreciation of what I already have. When you're feeling abundant and you're appreciating what you already have, you don't have that urge to go and spend more. The more I've done this, and the more I've gotten into this challenge, the easier it's become because I'm feeling more and more abundant because I'm noticing what I already have.

The other cool thing is that this time has allowed me to really think about the next version of me and what is in her closet. I've been spending time thinking about what pieces maybe I'm missing, what other things I need to let go of, and curating my next wardrobe in my mind so that when my no shopping challenge ends, I will have specific things that I am looking for, specific things that I want to invest in.

This could not come at a more perfect time, you all, because I am about to start a brand new program that has been in the making in my heart and in my mind, and people have been asking from me for a long time. It's called The Style Experience. Part of this pause and this reset was to get me ready to lead an extraordinary group of women through this process of living a stylish life.

I've had so many epiphanies, so many awakenings from doing this, and I can't wait to share them within The Style Experience. But more than anything, it's made me realize how so many of us, probably you, you have so much already, how can we maximize that? How can we enjoy it more? How can we appreciate where we are? I do believe that that is the way to fast track yourself to where you want to be.

Now, in thinking about the future, someone asked me the other day, they're like, "Are you going to do this again?" I want to make this a part of my yearly routine, a yearly habit. But I don't want to do six months. This was good. This was a great reset. I do see doing a three-month no shopping challenge every single year, maybe even twice a year, split up where I take a break and I enjoy what I have. I assess what I have. I let go of things.

I don't know. When I think about doing it, I feel so much space and freedom. I don't want to do six months in a row again. But splitting it up three months and three months, or maybe just three months a year, that feels really, really good to me.

The other thing that I've noticed is the money that I've saved in this, I'm able now to think about how to invest it in appreciating assets. For me, appreciating assets or coaching any kind of physical, tangible object that you put your money into and it appreciates. I've just been having fun thinking about, "Okay. I'm not putting this money in clothes over the six months, where am I going to invest it?" That's been fun as well.

I'm curious to hear from you. Have you ever done a no shopping challenge? If so, what was that like for you? What were some of your takeaways? I would love, love to hear. Come find me on Instagram at Tonya Leigh and let me know. Have a gorgeous week everyone. Cheers. I'll see you soon.

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Yesterday was my birthday! Happy Birthday to me and all my fellow Capricorns.

I love goals, but do you know what I love even more? Habits.

I know, they sound boring … but in this edition of The Edit - The Haute Issue - I’m going to do my best to convince you that they are the sexiest thing you could focus on to create an extraordinary life.

And if you want to spend 2023 creating the most inspiring transformation - the evolution of you - along with all of your SOSI sisters who are waiting for you inside the School of Self-Image, doors are open!

It’s haute life-couture at your fingertips. Join us today.

Love,

Habits are haute-couture.MADE PERFECTLY TO FIT YOUR FUTURE“Haute couture” is a form of French dressmaking that’s handmade, one-of-a-kind, and designed to create a perfect fit.

To make habits sexy, think of them like haute couture for your life. If you’ve been trying to force yourself to follow somebody else’s cookie-cutter habits, it’s no wonder you feel resistance.

Habits have to be designed to fit your goals, lifestyle, and preferences. Want to learn how? This month’s theme inside the School of Self-Image is all about designing your habits to match your future self.

A Great Book Recommendation

from Suzi Stanczyk Kwasinski“So excited to change some habits that are no longer working for me. I’ve just started James Clear’s book Atomic Habits on Tonya’s recommendation, and I’m already putting together my habit-stacking list!”

BUY ATOMIC HABITSAge Powerfully, Step by StepI want to age powerfully and be sexy well into my golden years, so a habit that I’ve committed to this year is walking or running for a minimum of a mile every single day (unless I’m sick or have a long travel day ahead.)

Plus, tracking my steps with the Apple Watch is so satisfying. (It’s the best dopamine hit you can get.) Want to join me?

GET THE APPLE WATCHHabits are creating yourentire life.Let’s play a game, shall we?

Imagine the most extraordinary future for yourself five years from now. Don’t limit yourself. Don’t judge what comes up, and don’t allow yourself to be confused.

Now, take a peek at the daily life of the “you” in that future…

Start from the time you wake up until the time you fall asleep. What are her habits?

That’s all the info you need. If you act like her today, you will become her. It’s that simple. In this week’s podcast, let me share with you a few of the habits that have completely changed my self-image.

Six Habits that Changed My Self-Image

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST// TheEDIT

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Listen to the Full Episode:“Never underestimate the power of self-love, because loving yourself is an avenue to an extraordinary life.”

Welcome to today’s episode of the ‘School of Self-Image’ Podcast with host and self-image coach, Tonya Leigh, where personal development meets style. This is your go-to podcast for women who desire to transform their self-image so that they can create mind-blowing results in their lives.

A productivity hack is a tip, trick, or technique that can help you work more efficiently and effectively, often by streamlining or simplifying a process or task. These hacks can range from simple tools or apps that help you stay organized, to more complex strategies for managing your time and energy. The reason I’m telling you this is to answer one of the most asked questions I hear: ‘How do you get so much done in your life?’.

First, being productive is part of choosing to live an extraordinary life. Next, having an amazing support system and a schedule is essential. These are probably the obvious ones, but those are not my secret productivity hack. Today I am revealing one secret productivity hack that really works for me. This is the foundation of how I can be extraordinary with all the things I do and all the tasks I juggle.

So if you’re ready to know what it is, be sure to listen to this week’s episode!

What You Will Discover with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: 0:00: Intro * 0:49 - How’s my life in North Carolina living in my suitcase * 2:56 - LAST CALL to join The School of Self-Image * 3:54 - What’s my secret productivity hack? * 5:11 - How to love yourself * 5:40 - Thought #1: ‘I am not good enough.’ * 6:19 - Thought #2: ‘I am behind.’ * 7:22 - Reasons why you should not turn yourself down * 8:59 - The more you speak love with yourself, the more you will be productive * 12:18 - How to make yourself a priority * 17:26 - The importance of self-love QuotesConnect with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: FREE Download: Self-Image Manifesto* * *LAST CALL to join The School of Self-Image today!! * Follow me on Instagram * Find me on Facebook * Subscribe on Youtube * Watch me on TikTok DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:People will sometimes ask me, "Tonya, how do you get so much done?" And they expect me to talk about my schedule and the support I have. Listen, those two things are key, but that's not my real secret. In fact, without what I'm about to share with you, none of that would work efficiently. So in this episode, I'm peeling back the curtains and sharing with you my secret productivity hack.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello, my beautiful friends. What an interesting week it has been. I'm still in an Airbnb waiting for my furniture to arrive. No one seems to know where my furniture is, and I'm living out of a suitcase wearing the same few outfits over and over and making it work. You know what? When life throws you lemons, we make limoncello. That's what we're doing around here. Equally, I've been having so much fun. I just got back from Miami. I met my friend Brooke down there, and we played pickleball all day, every day. I am addicted to the sport. We were both laughing at how we just can't get enough. In fact, we had a flight out on Monday. And our flight was I think like 10:15 so we had to be at the airport at like 8:30. And the day before we were like, "Can we get a game of pickleball in the morning?" So we got up, I swear it was dark outside. We're up trying to find coffee heading to the pickleball courts, and we were playing pickleball when the sun was coming up. It was the best. So much fun.

One of the things I'm loving about being back on the East Coast is that some of my favorite places are such a quick plane ride away. I can get to the Caribbean, I can get to New York, I can get to Miami, to DC. I do think I'm an East Coast girl y'all. I really do. So it feels really good to be back. I just wish I had my things. But even without my things, I'm so happy. It's been interesting living out of a suitcase. And you realize how few things you actually need to get through life and to enjoy life and sometimes more things cause you to be overwhelmed. So I'm just enjoying my little suitcase with my few outfits. And equally, I'm excited for my furniture and belongings to arrive so we can get settled into the townhouse that we're going to be living in while we build our house.

So that's an update. Also when you're listening to this, it'll be the last day that you can join the School of Self-Image before we close the doors. What in the world if you have not joined yet. Seriously, come on. Let's create your after story. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/join, read all about it and get into that membership. I've had so many new members reach out to me and just share they're mind blown at how much value is within the membership. And it's almost like one of those things you need to experience it to really appreciate it. And so come join us for a month. And if you don't like it, you can leave. But if you're like the majority of members, you're going to want to stay for a long time because it's powerful. You're going to create such incredible results in your life. So again, head to schoolofselfimage.com/join.

So today I want to share with you my secret productivity hack. Someone asked me recently how I am managing running a company, building a house, moving to a new city, and all of the other things that I'm up to. And I realize it's not what a lot of people think. Now, of course, I manage my brain, I schedule and I have help. I don't ever want to admit that I'm doing this all on my own because I'm not. But what has gotten me to this point and how I am able to get so much done is the one thing that we don't really associate with productivity, and yet it is everything. And since it is now the month of November, and this is the month of Valentine's Day, when we often think about relationships and love, this is about loving ourselves. And that is my secret productivity hack self love. I want to break it down to you why that is.

So let's think about what does it mean to love oneself? It really boils down to two things, the thoughts that you have about yourself and then how you treat yourself. A lot of us are thinking thoughts about ourselves that are slowing us down and helping us to be less productive. Let's think about what some of these thoughts are. One of them is, "I am not good enough." When you have that thought and you're thinking about all of the things that you want to create and do and experience, but you're thinking a thought that is so far from being loving, notice how it feels and notice how you show up when you are thinking this about yourself.

Chances are, you procrastinate because you're going to prove to yourself and gather evidence for what you believe to be true. So if you think you're not good enough, you're going to show up in ways to prove that to yourself.

Another thought that I hear a lot, and I think it's very unkind and very unloving, and the thought is, "I am behind." And I know there are so many of you listening to this podcast, you're sitting around thinking this. Imagine a child learning to walk. Let's say for example that maybe, just maybe, they are developmentally delayed according to what the experts say. So maybe the experts say they should be walking and they're two months behind. And you as the parent are looking at the child and just constantly reminding them, "You're behind. You're behind. You're behind." And then they start internalizing that and thinking, "I'm behind, so therefore I must not be good enough. Something's wrong with me." And it just becomes a spiral.

When that child is on his or her own path, when they are meant to walk, they will walk. They're not going to walk faster by people screaming at them, telling them how behind they are. If anything, that will delay them even more. Because when we are screaming at ourselves, when we are beating ourselves up, we are turning on our sympathetic nervous system. And when that is on, it's so difficult to access creativity. It's so difficult to be focused and to get things done. When your sympathetic system is turned on, you want to freeze, fight or flee, and it's usually a response out of fear.

Nothing we want is found in the space of fear. So we need to stop scaring ourselves. To me, that's the opposite of love. When you are scaring yourself unnecessarily, when you're pressuring yourself, when you're telling yourself that you're behind, it's so unloving and it actually slows down your productivity. So what I love to tell myself is, "Girl, you are right on time. There is no hurry. You've got this. I love you. You are right where you're supposed to be." And speaking to myself in such a way calms me down, it opens my heart, it opens my creativity. And from that place, I'm able to be so productive.

Now, I haven't always been like this. This has been years of training my brain to energetically reside in a different place most of the time. The more I love myself, the more I speak lovingly to myself, the more I'm able to get done. So for those of you who are wanting to be productive... And I think most humans do. We like getting things done. We like feeling that sense of accomplishment. We like checking things off. It feels good. But the way we go about doing it's like we are putting the brake on the car of our life. We're slowing ourselves down. And a lot of times we think, "Oh, the answer is to be harder on ourselves and to beat ourselves up to motivate us to get going." But notice how that often does the exact opposite. It rarely works. And when it does work, it's like the horse that you've beaten into submission.

He or she may behave, may do what you want for a while, but eventually that horse is going to bug you off. Underneath that horse's spirit is still there.

And that's what it's like with ourselves. We can beat ourselves up. We might submit, but eventually it's like that inner wild child's going to come out. But when we treat ourselves lovingly, when we speak kindly to ourselves, then we can get on board with what we really want. And that's when we can get so much more done and blow our minds with what we're capable of achieving. Not through self-loathing, but through self-love and self encouragement and self-respect. That is how you achieve extraordinary things. That is how you become more productive.

So self-love is how you speak to yourself. And how you speak to yourself can either speed you up, make you more productive, help you accomplish more and enjoy the process more, or it can slow you down and cause you to hate the process. But there's also how we treat ourselves. What I've noticed is that the more I take care of myself, which to me is part of self-love, the more energy I have and therefore the more productive I am. I know the tendency to put self-care on the back burner. I think this is especially true for moms and entrepreneurs. We're like, we're going to take care of our babies and our business, and if there's time left over, we may consider ourselves. But have you noticed that there's rarely time? There's always something to do. Whatever you've made a priority, it might not be babies and business, it might be something else that you have made more important than your own care.

And so what happens is that you focus on that thing and suddenly you wake up one day and you're like, "Wow, I've gained weight. I feel terrible. My skin is breaking out. I'm exhausted. I'm angry. I'm irritable." And it's because you didn't make you a priority. And eventually what ends up happening is that you don't have the energy. You don't have the productivity that you once had. And things start to slow down. And so what we often do is we're like, "Okay, I need to buckle down and work harder." And then on top of that, a lot of times what happens is you begin to speak to yourself very unkindly on top of not taking care of yourself. All of that just drains your energy more and more. So you'll notice that you're not as productive. And the answer is not to buckle down and add more to your calendar, it's actually to do the exact opposite. And it's to take a step back and make you a priority again, taking care of yourself.

This is the number one reason why I chose energized as my word of the year, because I know the tendency y'all keep thinking, "Oh, I can do that tomorrow." In fact, I have committed to having a habit this year of walking a minimum of a mile every single day. That's my minimum. I want to have days where I'm doing way more than just a mile. But knowing that I'm walking a mile every day is telling my brain, "Hey, you're a priority." Because I was getting into this habit of when I had a busy week like this week... And have you noticed that a lot of weeks are busy?

But I would put going to the gym, getting out and walking on the back burner and tell myself, "I'll do it tomorrow." And I would get to the gym three times a week, but when I think about the woman I want to be, she's active every single day, not just three times a week. And she makes it a priority.

And I started to think to myself, "Listen, if I can't walk a mile every single day, then I've created a life that I need to look at, that I need to assess and reexamine." And the truth is, it takes what? 15 minutes to walk a mile. If I don't have 15 minutes to take care of myself, what am I doing? I also know when I'm taking care of myself, I feel better not only physically but emotionally. I love thinking of myself in a way of I'm a woman who respects myself and loves myself enough to make me a priority. And then that energy is felt throughout my world. And I show up better. I show up more powerfully. I show up stronger. I show up more excited. And then that helps me to become more productive.

And not only the productivity piece, but it's also an energetic piece. I find that I don't have to work as hard because like attracts like. So as I'm showing up with more energy and I'm showing up in a state of self-love and self-respect, the world is mirroring that back to me with chance encounters and different opportunities and new clients. It's just the way the world works. So I find I don't have to work as hard, which is crazy. But that's not what the brain tells us. The brain's like, "You better get to work. Work harder. You can take care of yourself later." And that actually keeps you from creating the results that you really want.

One of the big concepts that I really want you to grasp is that you must be an energetic match for what you want. So when you think about your extraordinary goal, that's a term that we use within the School of Self-Image, so it's a big goal that you are excited to create but it's going to demand a whole different version of you, which is the purpose of it, right? Helps you grow. But when you think about you having achieved that, who is that version of you? Is she stressed? Is she beating herself up? Is she telling herself how she's not good enough? Is she telling herself that she's behind? Is she putting off going to work out? Is she eating crap? Is she staying up until 2:00 in the morning and having to wake up at 6:00 tired and exhausted? I'm guessing not.

And so to be a match for that in which you want, you must practice being who you think you'll be then. And that is why love, especially self-love, is the answer. Because when I think about all of our future selves, what they all have in common is that they love themselves madly. They don't beat themselves up when they fell, they grabbed themselves by the hand and they're like, "Darling, that's part of the process. I'm so proud of you. Let's go. You are doing it." They don't pressure themselves to hurry up. They're behind, but they're like, "Oh, honey, you are right on time. Take a deep breath. Enjoy this journey." They don't tell themselves that they're not good enough.

They tell themselves, "You know what, baby? You got it all within you, everything you need. You are extraordinary. You're beautiful. You're capable. You are it. Now go out there and show the world what you've got. More importantly, show yourself who you really are."

Our future selves are not telling us that we don't have time to go for a walk and that we can do it tomorrow. Do you know what they're saying? They're saying, "Oh darling, today is your day. You get up and you go love yourself enough to honor your word and to take care of you. And trust that everything's going to fall into place." Our future selves aren't afraid of money and not having enough because they do. So they're not pressuring themselves to work more, work harder, work faster, hustle, hustle, hustle. They're like, "Oh, there is enough. Take a breath and get into that energy of abundance. Because in that energy of abundance, you are a match for more abundance." And you have to trust that. And that's what our future selves, they're telling us. Trust it. You got to be that version of you in the future to attract that future into your life.

And so our future selves, they are wanting us to slow down, love ourselves more, take care of ourselves better, because they know that in that energy, we will be able to, number one, be more productive, enjoy the process more, and to be a match for what we deeply, deeply want. And that my friends is my secret productivity hack. And it's my hack to an extraordinary life in general. I know it may sound woo-woo to say self-love is the answer, but it's true. It's the answer to everything. Have a gorgeous, gorgeous week, everyone.

Once again, the doors are closing to the School of Self-Image today. So if you want to step in and create your after story from a place of love and abundance and joy, come and join us. Go to schoolofselfimage.com/join and I cannot wait to see you inside. Cheers.

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Can you relate? I used to start the New Year out with resolutions.This will be the year that I finally lose weight.This will be the year that I get my finances in order.This will be the year that I (fill in some lofty goal).At the end of the year, I’d sit with my list of unrealized goals and feel bad about myself, until …I revolutionized my resolutions with a completely new approach.

Instead of choosing the same boring goals year after year, I chose a “Word of the Year.”

Gamechanger.

A Word of the Year is truly your passport to wherever it is you want to go in life.

Welcome to The Passport Issue. It’s for women who are going places, and I know that’s you.

Let’s pack our bags. 2023 is going to be fabulous!

P.S. Did you hear that the School of Self-Image is open for the New Year? This month, we’re focusing not only on your Word of the Year but also on how to embody that word month after month with our all-new 12 Habits class.

EMBODY YOUR WORD TODAYExtraordinary goals lead a woman to extraordinary places.Do you want life to be more exciting? Do you want to feel more alive? Do you want to experience more joy?

If so, you simply need to choose an extraordinary goal.

If anything about my life inspires you, know this - I’m just an ordinary woman who goes after extraordinary things. When you decide to live an extraordinary life, you’ll discover the extraordinary within you.

A Strong Word of the Yearwith Andrea Foti Hart“After trying on dozens of words, my 2023 Word of the Year was sent by the universe through my amazing niece. She gave me a bracelet for Christmas with the phrase ‘Elle est forte’, and I was immediately touched. Forte. The French word for Strong. It’s a reminder that I have done many hard things in my life and will continue to do more. I’ll have to be strong to pursue my personal Extraordinary Goal of getting healthy and fit, as well as my joint Extraordinary Goal with my husband of becoming wealthy. I’m ready for this version of me. She is strong. Elle est forte.”

Stamp Your Passport in Style

When I think of my Word of the Year, a clear picture forms in my mind: me on a pickleball court in a cute outfit in the sunshine - playing with my best friends.

(In case you haven’t heard, I’m obsessed with this sport.) I think I’m going to ask for this sexy number for my birthday. What do you think?

GET THE DRESSMy 2023 Word of the YearWhen you choose a Word of the Year, you ditch the old “to-do list” and instead, you simply practice embodying the energy of the word you choose.

The first year I decided to ditch the New Year’s resolutions and choose a Word of the Year instead, I ended the year having not only achieved my goal but I had become the next-level version of me.

So each year, this is what I do…

Because here’s the secret. Goals work on the “doing” level while a Word of the Year works on the “being” level - or as we say, on the self-image level. And, as you know around here… Your self-image is creating everything.I’m sharing my Word of the Year in today’s podcast.

My 2023 Word of the YearLISTEN TO THE PODCAST// TheEDIT

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Listen to the Full Episode:Extraordinary life belongs to those who create it!Welcome to today’s episode of the ‘School of Self-Image’ Podcast with host and self-image coach, Tonya Leigh, where personal development meets style. This a go-to podcast for women who desire to transform their self-image so that they can create mind-blowing results in their lives.As I’m back living in my hometown, North Carolina, it’s so soothing to be surrounded by positive vibes and energy. A morning walk is one of the best little stuff I get to enjoy now. As I walk, I thought of that one learning which really impacted my life and how I can relate it to The School of Self-Image ~ becoming an extraordinary woman.There are probably a thousand words that we can relate to the word ‘extraordinary.’ But my focus today is self-image. How The School of Self-Image is the best way to become and reveal that extraordinary person within you. How you can start going beyond the usual. How you can create a remarkable impact in your life and community. How you can build the very best version of yourself. And how you can be one of the most extraordinary women, like me across the globe. All that in more when you listen to this week’s episode!What You Will Discover with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: 0:20 - Reasons why you should join The School of Self-Image * 2:24 - How’s waking up in our new home in Charlotte, North Carolina * 4:32 - Let’s define the word ‘extraordinary’ * 7:21 - 5 ways to create an extraordinary life * 7:32 - Way #1: You must choose extraordinary goals * 11:54 - Way #2: You must think in extraordinary ways * 15:45 - Way #3: You must be willing to feel extraordinary emotions * 18:22 - Way #4: You must have extraordinary style * 20:41 - Way #5: You must place yourself in extraordinary surroundings * 23:29 - Perks of joining the community of extraordinary women QuotesConnect with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: FREE Download: Self-Image Manifesto* * Join *The School of Self-Image * Follow me on Instagram * Find me on Facebook * Subscribe on Youtube * Watch me on TikTok DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello, my beautiful friends. I just learned a powerful lesson in the last five minutes. When things aren't working, you need to update the app, and I was thinking about how that's so applicable, not only to our iPhones and our computers, but to our lives. I've been sitting here trying to record this episode and it kept failing over and over, and I kept trying the same process. Then finally I thought, "Huh, why not go and update the app and see if that works?" And voila. So far it's a success. We all have this internal operating system, and if we keep failing and it's not working, maybe we just need to upgrade and update the operating system. That's what self-image work is all about, and doors to the membership are closing in just a few days. If you are ready to upgrade your operating system, if you are ready to completely transform how you see yourself, and therefore the results that you create in your life, if you are ready to create your after story, if you are ready to be the extraordinary woman that you are, come and join us.

Go to SchoolOfSelfImage.com/join and don't be surprised if you don't start to notice an update of your operating system within the first 24 hours of joining. I've had several women who just joined reach out to me on Instagram and say, "I'm blown away. I'm already seeing results. I'm already feeling a difference." And that's what happens when you begin to put different inputs into your brain as to what's possible. Come and join us, SchoolOfSelfImage.com/join. I'm excited today because I am recording this episode from my new city, Charlotte, North Carolina. We arrived a few days ago and I cannot tell you all how happy I was waking up this morning.

It's about 64 degrees outside and the fresh air, the humidity, the smells, the sounds, it's what I grew up with that I took for granted and that I didn't realize was missing from my life.

Different areas of the country, different areas of the world, all have their own style. There is definitely a style to the South in this area that I forgot how much I appreciate, I forgot how much I enjoyed it. I've just been walking around all day with the biggest grin on my face, just so happy and excited. And I told my family today because my parents are here visiting, I said, "I never want to take this for granted again. I want to remember this feeling of just enjoying the fresh air, of just enjoying the humidity, just enjoying the style of the South." We celebrated my birthday last night and I had some friends who live here who met us at this cute restaurant called Peppervine. Anybody who's in Charlotte should go check it out. And I was just sitting there so in love and so happy and thinking about the last several years and how extraordinary they have been and how they have been extraordinary because I decided to tap into my own extraordinary, because at the end of the day, we're all just ordinary people who choose to be extraordinary or we choose not.

I wanted to talk about in this episode how to be extraordinary. Everything that I'm going to be sharing is based on the definition of extraordinary, extra ordinary. I mean, really think about that. It's just ordinary with some extra. The definition of extraordinary is very unusual or remarkable or going beyond what is usual, regular or customary. Let's think about that in terms of our beingness, because what I know to be true is that we can get into ruts, we can get into this way of being and living where you're waking up and you are thinking the same thoughts. You're hanging out with the same people, you're believing the same things, you're wearing the same things, you're driving the same way to work. You are having the same kinds of conversations, you're eating the same things, you're moving in the same ways or not moving in the same ways, and you just keep creating the same results and life begins to feel very ordinary.

And what I know to be true is that to be extraordinary, it's about constantly pushing the limit of your self-image and therefore pushing the limit of what's possible for you. I even think about my life right now. It's extraordinary. It's remarkable. It blows me away that I've created this life. And I also know if I just kept this life as it is right now, it would begin to look and feel ordinary not only to myself, but to you. Think about it. Let's pretend five years from now I am recording the same kind of podcast. I still have the same kind of program that hasn't changed in five years. I'm dressing the same, I'm doing the same things. I'm basically the same person five years from now as I am today. That would not be inspiring. Probably a lot of you all would be like, "Tonya, why haven't you grown? Why haven't you evolved?"

And this is what happens to a lot of us. We get to a place where like, "Oh, I'm good. I'm just going to settle in right here." And listen, there is nothing wrong with that if that's what you're choosing on purpose. But a lot of people aren't choosing it on purpose and they're frustrated that their life doesn't have that energy, doesn't have that excitement. The only thing that needs to happen is that you need to choose to be extraordinary. And I'm going to share with you how to do that.

Are you ready? Let's talk about five ways that you can be extraordinary. Number one, choose extraordinary goals. Now, what makes a goal extraordinary? Well, if you happen to be within the School of Self-Image, in the self-image method, which is the foundational program that every member goes through, I have a whole section in that workbook that has a filter that you run your goal through to see if it's extraordinary.

Use those questions and see if you get the green light on your goal. But for the purpose of this podcast, I just want to talk about the definition of extraordinary. It's something that is out of the ordinary, unusual and remarkable. Check in with yourself and ask yourself, "Are my goals remarkable? Are they out of the ordinary? Are they unusual?" Because what often happens is we are going after goals that we think we should go after. For example, I can't tell you how many women I've worked with who went after the goal of becoming a doctor or an attorney because that's what their parents pressured them to do, and they jumped through the hoops. They went to school, got an amazing education, graduated, became a doctor or an attorney. These are just examples. Only to feel unfulfilled. They were pursuing someone else's dream, not figuring out what they truly wanted.

It's a goal that was ordinary to their extraordinary soul. Now, for some people, becoming a doctor and attorney is their path. It's their truth. It's extraordinary for them, but for others it's not. And that's why we have to really stop and check in with ourselves with the goals that we're creating. Another thing that I've seen with goals, and I used to do this one all of the time, is I would go after the same ordinary goals all of the time. Most notably weight loss. Every year, "I'm going to lose this weight, I'm going to lose this weight." And I was so uninspired, I didn't trust myself with it. It wasn't a goal that was unusual for me. It wasn't out of the ordinary. It was very predictable every year that this was going to be my goal. I had to come up with new goals that felt aligned with the future that I wanted to create.

Now, granted, I did want to lose the weight, but I realize now there were goals that I could pursue that would demand a more excellent version of me that would produce a weight loss result without me focusing on the weight all day, every day, year after year after year. My goals demanded that I show up in a different way, that I took care of myself in a certain way, that I didn't keep disappointing myself, but they weren't weight loss goals. I remember asking myself, if I were not trying to lose weight, what would I be doing? What would I be trying? The answers that came were things like learning new languages, traveling, adventure. I started to place my attention and focus on those things, and then the weight loss was a result. I realized my future self wasn't trying to lose weight.

She was already there. How could I embody her now? That's a whole different podcast topic, but what I want to say to those of you who are on a weight loss journey, you want to lose weight, I don't want you to let go of that. I think especially if you've been struggling with weight for a long time, that this is something that you are going to have to face to get to the next level. However, question what the goal can be that will require that version of you. Let's decide that we're going to choose extraordinary goals.

Goals that demand a new version of us, goals that excite us and scare us all at the same time, goals that are remarkable and out of the ordinary. Number two, if you want to be extraordinary, you must, you must think in extraordinary ways. Now, let's break this one down.

If you are thinking the same thoughts day after day, you're going to feel the same ways, you're going to do the same things and you're going to create the same results. One of the reasons why I love extraordinary goals so much is that all of your ordinary thoughts come bubbling to the surface. You're too old. It's going to be too hard. You're never going to be able to do that. You're not good enough. All of the stuff that's underneath running your life all of the time anyway, but especially when you set extraordinary goals, that stuff's going to come up. And I tell my clients, I'm like, "That's a beautiful thing because those are the exact thoughts that you're going to have to transform." You are going to have to think beyond them in a much bigger way. One of the things that I've been focusing on doing is picking crazy thoughts that I want to believe and just believing in them, just pretending that I believe them.

And of course my brain's like, "That's dumb. You don't know that. You've never been able to do that before." My brain does that. I'm like, listen, we're just going to pretend just like I am an actress and someone handed me a script. I'm just going to try this belief on and play around with it. And it's been really fun to just play around with crazy beliefs. For example, one of the beliefs that I've been practicing is that my life is just getting easier and easier every single day. Now, when I start hitting hiccups, for example, I just found out that my furniture is not going to arrive for another two to three weeks after they told me it would only take them a week.

My brain wants to struggle with this thought. My brain's like, "No, your life is not getting easier. Look at this situation. Where are you going to live? You have no furniture." And I realize I just get to choose to believe that if I want. I mean, my furniture not arriving, doesn't have to translate into my life is hard and life is getting harder. I could just choose to believe that it's easy. What if life is just a grand adventure? Now listen, I know y'all that there are hard moments, but if all of the thoughts that I could think, why would I choose to think that one? I've just been playing around with these thoughts like money is easy, money is fun. I'm the most lovable person ever. Life is getting easier and easier, and my life gets better and better every single day.

There's nothing that I can't do. I just go on these rampages of amazing, extraordinary thoughts and allow myself for a moment just to feel them. What if they were true? The more I feel in this more expansive and abundant way, I start to see evidence for these crazy thoughts that were available to me all along. And that's what I've noticed about extraordinary people. People who are being extraordinary, they think beyond their current reality. Because if you look around and you base your level of thinking on what is you just keep recreating what is.

We can think beyond it and create a whole new world that eventually we will manifest into reality because that is how it works. Number two, thinking in extraordinary ways.

Number three way of being extraordinary is you must be willing to feel extraordinary emotions. Now, hear me out here. A lot of people are afraid to feel negative emotion and therefore they don't allow themselves to feel positive emotion because your degree to feel a negative emotion will be your opposite degree of feeling the positive one. Did I say that right? I want to say that again. Your willingness to feel a negative emotion will be the degree to which you allow yourself to feel a positive one. What ends up happening is a lot of people just want to hang out in neutral. They want to feel too bad or too good. They just want to hang out and coast in neutral land.

But the problem with that is extraordinary doesn't hang out there. In order to have extraordinary experiences, in order to create extraordinary things, you must, you must be willing to potentially experience very negative emotion. I think about the risk I take, and that's the other one, be willing to take extraordinary risk. And when I think about the last two years, I've taken a lot of big risk and I have been able to experience the extraordinary result of that. But in terms of feeling like every time I take a huge risk, I have this extraordinary feeling of fear and anxiety and worry. And this is very normal to our very human brains. The bigger the risk, the more freaked out your brain is going to be, the bigger the potential threat, and yet also the bigger the potential reward. What this means is that you must learn how to feel extraordinary emotions.

I think about love. A lot of people are so afraid of having their hearts broken, which is a terrible, terrible feeling. They don't go out on dates, they don't put themselves out there, but the consequences, they don't get to experience extraordinary love, extraordinary connection because they are unwilling to feel the extraordinary potential pain and loss. To be extraordinary means to increase your capacity to feel extraordinary things. The fourth way to be extraordinary is to have extraordinary style. Y'all knew I was going to talk about style, but hear me out. Style isn't just about what you wear. Style is how you communicate, how you treat other people, how you express what is on the inside to the outside. When it comes to our style, we can get into ruts, carrying ourselves in the same ways, communicating in the same ways, wearing the same things, and it just keeps reinforcing the same self-image.

And your self-image is what's creating your life. If you want to be extraordinary, you must continuously expand your self-image. And one of the ways to do that is to constantly expand your style, showing up in bigger and bolder ways. I've noticed that as I evolve, so does my style. If I ever find myself choosing the same things over and over year after year, I'm asking myself, where is the growth? Why am I still wearing the same kinds of clothes I've been wearing for years? I want to constantly push my style edges to reflect back to me the next version that I need to become to reach my extraordinary goals. Extraordinary style is not something to underestimate. It has such a huge impact on our lives. And remember, extraordinary just means out of the ordinary. It means remarkable. It means unusual to you.

Are you dressing and showing up in a way that is remarkable to you? Meaning do you find yourself worthy to be remarked upon, worthy of attention? Are you showing up in ways that is out of your ordinary, that you are constantly pushing your own edges of your expression? That's number four. Number five,

I've bunched a couple of things together, and it's one of the core pillars of the School of Self-Image and what we focus upon to transform a woman's self-image. And that is extraordinary surroundings. The places you go and the people you hang out with are reflecting your self-image back to you. And one of the things that I know has helped me to become extraordinary is placing myself in extraordinary environments. Extraordinary for me, meaning environments that are outside of my ordinary. I'm constantly pushing the edges of the rooms that I go into and the people that are in those rooms.

It's this constant expansion of putting myself an unusual and remarkable and out of the ordinary environments that hold a different energy, that hold different possibilities that aren't maybe hanging out in my current environments. And that also hold new thoughts, new perceptions, new beliefs. And a big part of your surroundings are the people. When you start placing yourself in extraordinary surroundings, what you most likely are going to be doing is placing yourself around extraordinary people. And those people are going to remind you of the extraordinary within you because that's what extraordinary people do. They're not jealous, they're not competitive. They truly want what is the best for you, for them, and for the whole. And it's like we all rise together. It's very unusual to be around those kinds of people, people who are supportive and celebratory of each other and abundant. They're not full of scarcity thinking, "Oh my God, if you succeed, then I'm going to fail and so I need to hold you back."

No, that's actually very ordinary. That's very common. But to be around extraordinary people who think in such big expansive ways and who know the truth of the universe, that there is more than enough, that we are all enough. Those kinds of people, those kinds of environments will change you in the most extraordinary ways. And I'm telling you all, that's the kind of environment that you get access to when you join the School of Self-Image membership. We are extraordinary women thinking in extraordinary ways, having an extraordinary goal, feeling extraordinary emotions, showing up an extraordinary style and surrounding ourselves with extraordinary people. If you want to be extraordinary, focus on those five elements, and I promise you, you will change in the most extraordinary ways. You will not recognize yourself a year from now.

And if you want my support and the support of the most incredible community of women, come and join us within the School of Self-Image membership. The doors are closing in just a few days. I would love to see you inside. I love you all, and I will see you on next week's episode. Cheers.

Hey, have you grabbed your free copy of the School of Self-Image Manifesto? If not, what in the world? Head over to SchoolOfSelfImage.com/manifesto, and get a copy that teaches you how to think and show up in the areas of mindset, style, and surroundings so that you can transform your self-image.

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You’re Invited To Live An Extraordinary Life!

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Happy 2023!

The new year is in full swing over here, and three big things are front and center for me right now.

Live Like an EditorI’m getting ready for our most popular workshop, Live Like an Editor - starting on Monday! Are you coming?

RSVP NOWLet There Be a Method to Your MadnessIsn’t it relaxing when you type a destination into your GPS and all you have to do is sit back, relax, and follow the directions? That’s what it feels like to have a method for evolving your self-image. The Self-Image Method can take you there.

Get a taste of the Self-Image Method in our upcoming Live Like an Editor workshop.

TASTE THE MAGIC!SPF for Your Beautiful FaceYour future’s so bright, Reagan - you’re going to need a good SPF (yes, even in winter!) This is my fave from Priori - one of our beloved sponsors at SOSI Desert Live! last year.

Use the code SOSI20 to receive 20% off your first order.

GET THE SPF!Big NewsIt all started last June while I was in the middle of doing a major closet cleanout. As I placed the last piece of chosen clothing on the hanger and basked in the glory of a fresh, updated closet, I had a big a-ha.

The way I had just tackled my closet was the way I have transformed my self-image (and my entire life). I’ve now called this approach the Self-Image Method. It’s 5 simple steps that will help you decide where to focus, what to elevate, and what to let go of. Get a taste of it in this week’s podcast.

For access to the entire method, watch the membership area. We’ll be releasing it within the School of Self-Image this week!

And, if you’re not a member …

What in the world?

Doors will be opening soon.

Get in there and get ready to meet your future self.

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Listen to the Full Episode:Are you gonna feed your past or feed your future?Welcome to today’s episode of the ‘School of Self-Image’ Podcast with host and self-image coach, Tonya Leigh, where personal development meets style. This a go-to podcast for women who desire to transform their self-image so that they can create mind-blowing results in their lives.Let’s first define habits! Habits are the small actions you make and the actions you do every day. As we reflect on the past year and set goals for 2023, it works hand-in-hand with change like ~ How can you make yourself better? How can you achieve greater heights? How can you be the best possible you? Bottomline is, people try to crack bad habits and to be the better version of themselves.In life, it’s actually part of nature. People are capable to make decisions and perform actions. Well, that’s a fact. And I admit, I had bad habits. I can proudly say that I’m not away from all that. I’m not an exemption because it’s part of the process toward a better life. Until I helped myself to stand out and succeed. The very reason I created discovered my own self-image. The good news is, you can do it too by joining The School of Self-Image today!What You Will Discover with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: 0:45 - LIFE UPDATE: I’m leaving Colorado for good! * 1:50 - How can self-image work for you * 6:01 - Habits define your life * 7:48 - How to build good habits and break bad ones * 11:31 - The Self-Image Habits * 12:51 - Self-Image Habit #1: Speaking kindly to myself * 16:57 - Self-Image Habit #2: Practicing the habit of eating until elegant satisfaction * 22:20 - Self-Image Habit #3: Getting dressed on purpose every day * 26:01 - Self-Image Habit #4: Investing money * 29:03 - Self-Image Habit #5: Wearing well-fitted and beautiful lingerie * 32:30 - Self-Image Habit #6: Having fresh flowers in my house at all times QuotesConnect with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: FREE Download: Self-Image Manifesto* * Join *The School of Self-Image * Follow me on Instagram * Find me on Facebook * Subscribe on Youtube * Watch me on TikTok DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:There have been habits on my self-image journey that have changed my identity, and I'm sharing those with you in today's episode. So let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello my friends. Today's episode is a little bittersweet because I just realized that it's going to be the last podcast episode that I record in my apartment in Denver. My mom is in town. She just flew in a few days ago and we've been packing up and in two days I fly to Charlotte, North Carolina, which is where I'm going to call home for a while. So it's exciting, but I'm going to miss Colorado. Colorado is a state that has witnessed Tanya transform so many times, and Colorado is such a beautiful energy and the people here are incredible, and it's a place I'm going to come back to a lot. So even though I'm leaving, I will still get to visit often. This has been such a full week. I try not to use the word busy because my future self doesn't use that word, and so I'm very mindful to speak the language that I'll be speaking in my future in my present.

But she does have full weeks, and this has definitely been one of them. As I said, we are packing up and I'm flying out in a couple of days. I've also been running the live like an editor workshop, and if you did not join that workshop, what in the world? It is so much fun, and I've had women tell me they, in fact, a woman emailed me yesterday and she was like, listen, I've done a lot of these challenges. I've done a lot of webinars.

She was like, I've never, ever experienced something so powerful as what you're doing this week. And it's just a sample of what we do within the School of Self-Image in the membership. And I don't know if you heard, I don't know if you've saw, but the doors are open right now, but they're going to be closing soon.

So if you want to dive into this work this year, if you want to make focusing on your self-image a priority, and I highly recommend you do, and the reason being is it's creating everything. How you see yourself is determining how you show up, what opportunities you say yes to, what opportunities you attract. It's determining how much money you make. It's determining the quality of your relationships. It's determining the state of your home. It's determining your wellbeing. Your self-image is the key to everything that you want. I have women who join the membership who share with me that they can't believe how they are creating results that they've tried to create for years. And suddenly they get it. They understand why they've struggled, and it's never because anything's wrong with them ever. It's just no one teaches us this. And so we chase things outside of us.

We chase our goals, we chase the things that we want, but we don't become the person who has it. And so we are not a match for it. And this is why self-image work is the most important work you will ever do. I have had women who have come into this membership who've been in therapy for years and they felt stuck and they start doing self-image work and suddenly it's like the light bulb goes off and they start getting momentum in their lives. Now, this is not a replacement for therapy. Therapy is a beautiful tool, a beautiful resource for some people and for some people, therapy keeps perpetuating an identity, a self-image of something's wrong with me and I'm broken. And so what we do within the school of self-image is that we don't see ourselves as broken, number one, no one is. We're all amazing, beautiful humans who have limiting beliefs, who have our own challenges that we get stuck at.

But when you can think beyond them, when you can feel beyond them, when you can dress beyond them, when you can create an environment beyond them, that future will begin to pull you towards it. And that is exactly what we do. So if you want to join us, and in my opinion, if you are wanting to live an extraordinary life and you're stuck, this is a no-brainer. The doors are open for a limited time. What I know to be true is that the women within the school of self-image who commit to this process are going to be blown away in 2023. They're going to end the year thinking, oh my goodness, I cannot believe that I did that this year because we are going to become the women who do that. So go to schoolofselfimage.com/join and let's do it. Let's go. I cannot wait to see you inside.

Now, today I want to share with you some habits that have changed my self-image. So first of all, what is a habit? A habit is anything that you repeatedly do.

It's brushing your teeth, it's looking at your phone, it's making your bed, it's drinking coffee every morning. The things that you do every single day without even thinking, it's just like installed software of how you run is a habit and your habits are creating your entire life. And the reason why they're creating your entire life is because your habits confirm your current identity and you will always take action to prove yourself true. You will always take action subconsciously to live in harmony with your current self-image. So it's the situation where your habits are reflecting your self-image back to you, and your self-image determines your habits.

So we need to change our habits to change our self-image, and we need to change our self-image to change our habits. So what do we do first? And the simple answer is you must work on both. But what usually ends up happening is we start the new year and we're like, you know what? This is the year I'm going to work out every single day so that I can finally lose weight. And you leak the habit to the outcome that you want, and this is how we get it wrong. When I started to practice habits to create a new identity versus focusing on the outcome, that's when I was able to gain crazy massive momentum in my life. And the outcome is a result of the changed identity. But whenever I go about creating a new habit, I am doing it for the sole purpose of changing my self-image, changing my identity.

And I know because I've done it enough now that when I do that, the result will come because I will subconsciously be working to prove myself true. So let me give you an example. This year, the habit that I am practicing is I have committed to walking slash run a minimum of one mile every single day. And I have a couple of exceptions that I've already stated ahead of time. Now, I could easily link this habit to an outcome, to a goal that I want to achieve in the future. So let's say, for example, I want to get ripped this year, although I don't know that walking just a mile a day will get you ripped. But let's just say for the sake of this example, that's the goal. If I wake up every day wanting to walk or run a mile to get ripped, there's a problem with that.

And the problem is, if I don't see myself as a fit woman, I will always be working against myself. And so what I'm doing is I am doing this for the purpose, the outcome I want is to have a self-image of a woman who is active every single day. I am active parts of the week, like I go to the gym, but there are days when I'm working that I just don't really get up and move a lot, and that will not be this year because my word of the year is energized and I want to be physically, emotionally, mentally energized. And so part of that for me is a movement getting into motion. So I am practicing this habit to change my identity to that of an active, energized woman. And I know when I really begin to feel it embody it, me getting up and walking, running a mile will be the easiest thing ever because that will be my identity.

And that is the secret to changing habits. Do it for the purpose of seeing yourself differently and trusting the outcome will come. Another example is let's say you want to create a net worth of a million dollars. That's the outcome you want. So you're like, okay, this year I'm going to save money. And you start putting money away for the sole purpose of reaching that goal. I want you to have a net worth of a million plus, but changing your focus from the million dollars to I want to practice this habit to create a wealthy self-image. And every time you save that money, you're like, I'm wealthy. I am wealthy. What I know to be true is that when you see yourself as wealthy, you're going to create that result with ease in the external world. And this is why focusing on self-image habits is so powerful.

And for those of you within the membership, there is an incredible class in there called self-image habits. And the workbook takes you through creating your plan. It takes you through a habit inventory, it challenges you to set up your life with these habits that will change your identity. So make sure that you find that class within your membership and go through that work if habits is something that you know need to focus on. In addition, there's a class that we're currently in for the month of January that's habit focused, which will be a great support for you as well. I'm really focused on habits this year because I know the habits, that's what's creating your life, the good and the bad. And so as we begin to elevate our habits and do so in the aim and with the intention of changing our identity, that's when we start to get momentum in our lives.

And so when I was prepping for this podcast, I was thinking about the habits that have changed my self-image the most, that had a big impact on how I see myself. And so I thought it would be fun to share some of these habits with you. So the first one that has had such a big impact is the habit of speaking kindly to myself. Years ago, I realized that I wanted to be a woman who was confident, who had her own back, who was her own best friend because the other way was not working, beating myself up, tearing myself apart, extending myself absolutely zero grace was not effective. And so I drew a line in the sand with myself and said, listen, this is no longer allowed. I want to practice the habit of speaking kindly and lovingly to myself. And with any habit, it's not easy at first, especially when you've been practicing another habit that's an opposition of it for so long.

And for me, the words that I had used against myself for years was very unkind. And so those neural pathways and that default mechanism was in place. Without me even trying, my brain would go to, you're a loser. You're not good enough. That's just where my brain would go. And so I had to constantly redirect my brain. I'm like, oh, nope. That's not who we are now. That is not what we are practicing. That is not the habit of the woman that we're becoming.

And I practice that habit so much for the purpose of having a self-image of a woman who loves herself and has her own back. And now it's so rare for my brain to go to the dark places that it used to go in terms of how I speak to myself. Now, I can visualize some crazy stuff for the people I love, always worried are they okay?

And every once in a while, the thought will come up. Well, you're a loser. You're not good enough. But it's not as often, and I just don't go there. When it pops up, it's so easy for me to redirect because I've been practicing a new habit for so long, and this is a habit that I recommend for every single one of you. In fact, when you come into the school of self-image, one of the rules that I have is that you are kind to yourself. I have very few rules for the membership, but one of them is you must be kind to yourself. And if I ever hear you not being kind to yourself, I'll often say, don't speak to my friend that way. I'll become a bodyguard between you and you because I know that the results that you're trying to create in your life, whether it's to grow your business, to have a better marriage, to lose weight, to get your house decluttered and organized, whatever it is that you want, I know without a shadow of a doubt that being kind to yourself is the key.

Now, some of y'all mistake kindness for just not caring and letting yourself get by with some crazy stuff. That's not it. Sometimes the love we extend to ourselves is tough love because you want the best for yourself. So I'm not talking about just being apathetic. What I'm speaking about is practicing the habit of love and grace and kindness towards yourself. Probably the kind of energy that you bestow upon almost everybody else in your life but you. What if you just made this the year that that is no longer how you operate, and you created a whole new habit of being kind to yourself? If you just did that, your life would change in the most beautiful and magical ways. Okay, so that was one habit that really, really changed my self-image. Another habit that changed my self-image was practicing the habit of eating until elegant satisfaction, or another way of saying that, not overeating.

And listen, for years I tried not to overeat and it would backfire. Before you know it, I was going back for seconds and for thirds, and I was so frustrated because all I wanted to do was to lose weight. I wanted to feel good in my body. I was tired of this struggle, and now I can look back and I can understand it. I was trying not to overeat within an identity of a woman with a weight problem. Can you all see how that doesn't work? But when I started to practice the habit of eating until elegant satisfaction with the sole purpose of changing my identity to be that of a naturally slim woman, then it started to stick the habit. So if we go into my mind and just watch my brain, I imagine that this is what was happening.

Before when I was trying not to overeat, I had my brain saying, but you have a weight problem. You're fat. You have always struggled with this, all past focused thinking.

But when I started to practice the habit with the intention of changing my identity, my brain was like, or I was telling my brain, no, this is who we're becoming now. We are practicing being a naturally slim woman. And there was less resistance because my intention was not to lose the weight. In that moment, my intention was to have the identity practice, the identity of being a naturally slim woman. And my brain could buy into that. My brain was like, yeah, this is I guess what we're doing. We're practicing what it's like to be a naturally slim woman, not you're so fat, you're overweight, you have a weight problem. And then me trying so hard to not overeat. So I really began to align my energy with what I wanted by practicing the identity of who I wanted to be.

And then as you can guess, the result eventually became. And it wasn't so hard then because I had changed my identity in the process. Another similar habit around my weight loss journey and becoming a naturally slim woman was I started practicing the habit of only eating quality foods. So what that looked like is I didn't go through the drive-through at Taco Bell any longer and get Nacho's Bell Grande, because when I imagined the naturally slim version of me that I wanted to be... Now everybody's going to have a different version. But she really was a food snob, and I wanted to be her. I wanted to be the kind of woman that looked at her body and loved her body enough that she would look at certain foods and just be like, no, there's no way that that is going into this temple.

Now, think about this, I was also practiced being kind to myself, so I wasn't beating my body up all of the time with negative words. I was practicing being a woman who's kind to herself and also practicing being naturally slim. And so you put those two together and I was being loving to myself. I was practicing that. And the result, it's just like you can see this momentum building because my identity was shifting. Even walking through the grocery store, I would try on the identity of a food snob, and where is she shopping? Guess what? She's on the perimeter of the grocery store. She's shopping where there's fresh fruits and vegetables and little bit of cheese. She's like on the outskirts of the grocery store. She limits her time down the aisles where all the processed food is. And so I practiced those habits to prove to myself that this is who you're becoming.

Now, as you can imagine, the brain loves to remind you of the past as well as probably your family, right? Oh, wait, this is who you've been. What's happening? And I just had to remind myself, oh, no, no, no, no. We're not living back there. We're living here and over there in future land. So the question really boils down to are you going to feed your past or feed your future? Because both will present themselves to you. In this moment, you can spend time feeding the past and thinking about it and ruminating on it and talking about it. Or you can feed your future in practicing habits of your future self.

Another habit that had a huge impact on my self-image, and when I say huge, I'm talking about massive. And it was the habit of getting dressed on purpose every single day.

I wanted to see myself as a worldly, sophisticated and self respectful woman. And when I thought about that version of me, she was not hanging out in her PJs. She wasn't wearing oversized clothes, trying to hide her body. She wasn't just reaching for any old thing in her closet. No. Her closet was full of clothes that look good on her. And when she woke up in the morning, she woke up with purpose. She woke up with an intention, and she dressed for it. She dressed for her days like she meant it. And so I began to practice that habit because that's how I wanted to see myself. And then the craziest thing started to happen, you all, people started to treat me differently. Opportunities started to show themselves. And I was just reading from one of the School of Self-Image members how she's had the exact same experience by changing her style and showing up on purpose.

She's making more money, she's attracting opportunities, and she feels so much better about herself because when we respect ourselves, we just feel better about ourselves. And how you appear to yourself, how you dress, how you treat your body is a form of self-respect. So for me now, it's crazy to visit old pictures of myself. I look at them and I'm so far from where she was that it's almost like I'm looking at someone I don't know. But then when I really think about it, I can get into her mindset and I'm like, oh yeah, girl, I remember how you used to think and feel about yourself. But now I see myself as someone who has style, as someone who dresses well, as someone who... I just expect certain things from the world now that that version of me did not expect, and it's because I practiced self-image habits, and this was a big one.

You think about it like you're with you all day. You're looking down at what you're wearing, or you're looking at a reflection in the mirror. And that reflection is confirming a self-image that you hold about yourself. So as you begin to change what you see in that mirror, you begin to change the dialogue in your head. Now, this only happens when you are practicing things with the purpose of changing your identity, because there are people who change the exterior and never change the interior, and that's not what we do within the School of Self-Image. Our actions are always in support of our futures that we want, and therefore, in shaping our self-image on purpose and style was huge, huge for me. Another habit that had a really big impact on my self-image was investing money. So I know that some of you all listen to this, you struggle with money mindset.

You have a lot of fear and scarcity around money. And listen, I get it, especially for those of us who grew up poor. It's a thing, and it's not easy to get out of that.

But one of the things that my brain was always telling me is like, I don't have enough money to invest. That's something that only really wealthy and rich people do. But when I thought about the wealthy and rich version of me, she invested her money. And so years ago, what I started to do is I started to put away a hundred dollars a month. Now, in that moment, that felt like a lot of money, and it was, I love a hundred dollars, but I also know that we recalibrate our lives to what's important. We will figure it out. And when I started to do that with the purpose of seeing myself as wealthy and seeing myself as someone who I can trust with money and who invests money, when I started to practice this habit for that purpose, it started to have this bigger effect that began to spill over into other areas of my life.

Because what I was really doing is I was practicing the art of discipline, which by the way, there's a whole workshop in the membership on that. If you have not watched it, go watch that class. It's really, really good. But I was confirming to myself that I'm a disciplined woman, and specifically in this area around money, but feeling disciplined around money helped me to be more disciplined with my food, more disciplined with my exercise, more disciplined eventually when I started a business with my business. And the result is over time, that money has compounded. And now I have physical evidence for the identity that I practiced years ago. Now, just like with the food, imagine if I had been saving money to get rich in that moment, I would've been frustrated because I was thinking like a poor person. Because that's what poor people do, just like overweight people, when you have that identity, you want to lose weight fast.

And if you're not seeing results fast enough, then you give up because you still have an overweight mentality. But when I was practicing this habit with the intention of creating a wealthy identity, then I could just slow everything down. I wasn't in a rush. I just wanted to do that a hundred dollars savings investment every month to prove to myself and to collect evidence that this is who we're becoming. We are becoming a wealthy woman. The other habit that had a big impact on my self-image that not many people saw, in fact, only a few people have seen, but it changed my life. And this is around style, but this is deeper. It's underneath. It is your underpinnings. I started to only wear well-fitted and beautiful lingerie, and I have been preaching this for years. In fact, for any of you all who took my program back in the day called Slim, Chic, and Savvy, this was one of the things that I required you all to do.

Go get fitted properly for bra and refuse to wear janky, holy old underwear and bras that are stretched out and falling off your shoulder. And I did this because when I went to France for the first time, I noticed that there were lingerie stores that felt like on every corner.

And I started to be curious about French women and who they must be to really honor and cherish lingerie to the extent that they apparently did based on the supply and demand. And if you all have been around for a while, you know that I went through this period of just being in awe of French women. Now I'm just in awe of all women. I think we're all amazing, but that was what I needed to go through. I just thought, oh, they symbolize who I thought I wanted to be at the time, especially their sense of style and their sense of femininity and their sense of allure and mystery.

That was something that I felt was so far removed from who I was at the time. And so I was like, lingerie must be the key. That must be the secret that no one has told me about. So I went to Chantal Thomass in Paris when I was there, and I bought my very first set of beautiful lingerie. And that just set off this chain of energetic events within myself. By wearing that lingerie, I started to see myself as feminine and as worthy and as respected to myself. And it really did change how I saw myself because no one else was seeing it except for my now ex-husband at the time. But I saw it, I felt it, and I mattered. And that's what really happened. Putting on beautiful, well-fitted... Because we don't need to be uncomfortable, but well-fitted lingerie was a way to confirm this identity of you matter.

And when you know that you matter in the world because you matter to yourself, other things start to happen, you start putting up boundaries, you start giving yourself permission to go after things. So it was about so much more than the lingerie, the last habit that I'm going to talk about today because I have more. But this one had a big impact on my self-image, and that is the habit of having fresh flowers in my house at all times. Years ago, I went to Madam Clement's house. This was this lovely French woman who lived in the south of France, and she had these gorgeous bouquets of flowers all around her house. And I was just in awe, and I was also taken back. I'm like, this is wasteful. Why would she do this? That must be expensive. So it was a lot of money scarcity around this.

But if I were being honest with myself, I wanted that. It was so beautiful and thoughtful. And so I came home and I bought an $8 bouquet of tulips from Walmart. That is where my flower journey began, in Walmart, which means it can begin anywhere, my friends. But that became a habit, and I did it because I wanted to see myself as a woman who took care of her beauty. And when I say take care of your beauty, a lot of people go to how you take care of yourself. And that is one aspect, but it's also how you take care of the beauty in your environment. And every time I looked at those flowers, it was reconfirming this new identity. Number one, it was reconfirming a wealthy identity because when I thought about the wealthy version of me, she's not so scared of not having money, that she's not willing to pay $8 for a bouquet of tulips.

But it also confirmed to me that I am a woman who creates beauty. I am a woman who cares about her surroundings. And again, just like with all of these other habits that I've shared with you, there was a compound overflowing effect on the other areas of my life. Because as I stepped into this identity more and more, I started to create more evidence for it. And so now it's artwork. Now it's taken the time to wash my face properly at night. It's like all of these other habits came from that one habit because it changed my identity. And we will always, always work to prove ourselves true. However we see ourselves, whatever our self-image is, we're always going to be undercover working to stay in harmony with that.

So when you begin to practice habits with the purpose of changing your self-image, don't be shocked when other amazing things begin to happen in the rest of your life because you're going to start working to prove yourself true. And this is why I love this work so much. It's why I love working with women around their self-image, helping them to elevate their style, helping them to elevate their environment, and therefore elevate their mindset. Because I know that when you begin to see yourself as that version of you that's in the future, you'll begin to create that future with so much ease and fun and excitement. So what are habits that you are being called to practice this year? And if you want the support of me and the incredible School of Self-Image community, come and join us. Here's what I'll promise you. It'll be the best investment that you make in 2023. Go to schoolofselfimage.com/join, and I cannot wait to see you inside. Cheers, my friends. I'll see you in the next episode.

Hey, have you grabbed your free copy of the School of Self-Image manifesto? If not, what in the world? Head over to schoolofselfimage.com/manifesto and get a copy that teaches you how to think and show up in the areas of mindset, style, and surroundings so that you can transform your self-image.

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Listen to the Full Episode:What’s your ultimate goal for 2023?Welcome to today’s episode of the ‘School of Self-Image’ Podcast with host and self-image coach, Tonya Leigh, where personal development meets style. This a go-to podcast for women who desire to transform their self-image so that they can create mind-blowing results in their lives.It’s been my New Year exercise to choose a word for the year. This has been the way to start a fresh and new year. I’m actually doing this for over a decade now, which I’m really proud of.Imagine one word that would set the tone. A word to focus on. A word that will motivate you to do better. A word to guide you to stand still in times of challenges and doubts. A word that will light up the direction, no matter where you are in the world. A word is a key to achieving your end goals for the year.So, I’m inviting you to not just listen in this week’s episode but to choose your word for the year and share it with me today!What You Will Discover with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: 0:43 - Getting ready for Lunar New Year * 1:14 - Reasons why you should choose your word for the year * 3:03 - Abundant: My first word of the year * 4:10 - I’m torn between two words! * 5:28 - What is my word for 2023? * 7:45 - The concept of the ‘Be, do have’ model * 12:42 - Focus #1: Be extremely mindful of my thoughts and words. * 14:23 - Focus #2: Change my working environment * 17:35 - Focus #3: To increase my physical energy * 20:21 - How to create a new version of yourself QuotesConnect with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: FREE Download: Self-Image Manifesto* * Join *The School of Self-Image * Follow me on Instagram * Find me on Facebook * Subscribe on Youtube * Watch me on TikTok DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:It's that time of the year. I'm not talking about New Year's resolutions. I'm talking about something that's so much more fun and more effective, and that is choosing your word of the year. And in this episode, I'm revealing mine for 2023. So let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello, hello, my friends. How is your 2023 going? If you're already a little bit disappointed, maybe you started out the new year with a goal or a resolution and you've already disappointed yourself, I have some good news. First of all, the Lunar New Year does not start until January the 22nd, so you can just consider this first couple of weeks of the year to be your getting ready for the new year. And the second piece of good news is what I'm actually going to talk with you about today. I'm going to encourage you to choose a word of the year. I've been doing this exercise for many years and I've written blog posts about it. I've recorded a podcast about it, and I am devoting this episode to it because I think it's very important and very effective. So, what is a word of the year?

I want you to think about it as a singular energy that you want to focus on experiencing and embodying for the entire year. Now, this does not mean that you will not experience other things, but this is a very intentional energy that you want to practice feeling, being, so that you are an energetic alignment for what it is that you want. So I'm not going to discourage you from having goals. I personally love a goal.

I love a goal because they inform who I need to become in order to reach them. They become my guide to reveal to me what's holding me back and also to reveal to me my own becoming. But we don't just set a goal and go after it without doing this internal work because oftentimes, what happens is you don't change your beingness. And so, all the doing in the world just keeps backfiring on you because you will always come back to who you see yourself as, to your beingness.

And this is why I love choosing a word of the year because it focuses on the being level. I went back and did a little research on my very first word of the year because I couldn't remember, because I've been doing it for so long. And it turns out my very first word of the year was abundant. I wanted to practice being an abundant woman. And this was when I first started my coaching practice, I was probably two or three years in. And that year, I made my first six figures. Now, I had tried to make six figures in the years prior, but it felt so hard. I was always working against myself. And the reason why is because I was just focused on the action level and not focused on the being level. And so, I was being poor while trying to create abundance and it just doesn't work.

But that year, I focused on being abundant. How does that woman think? What does she do? What does she wear? How does she carry herself? How does she spend her money? How does she think about money? How does she think about her business? How does she think about her clients? And by embodying that energy, that is how I was able to make my first six figures. So, I've been thinking a lot about this year. And up until a couple of hours ago, I didn't know my word of the year. I was wrestling between two, and I knew I was doing this podcast. So I was like, "Okay, girl, you got to decide, pick one." And I actually just did a bonus call within the School of Self-Image membership on my process, like going deep into how I chose this word. So if you are a member, I highly encourage that you go and listen to that bonus session that I just did.

By the time you listen to this, I would've just recorded it the day before. And again, I think this will help you and getting clear on what you want your word of the year to be if you haven't chosen one yet. And if you're not a member, we just opened the doors, what in the world? Head over to schoolofselfimage.com/join and jump into not only the Live Like an Editor Week, which is available to all of the members, but also the bonus calls that I'm doing this week. So, are you ready to hear my word of the year? Drum roll, please. My word of the year for 2023 is energized. At the core of my coaching, at the core of self-image transformation is the study of energetics. We are all a ball of energy, and that energy is attracting certain things and repelling certain things.

In addition, we also need energy to create.

And so, when I was thinking about my extraordinary goal for the year, and I was thinking about everything that I've planned for this year because I've already planned out my entire year, which is super fun, and I will definitely be talking about that within the membership. But when I think of all of that, the one word that just kept coming up for me is energy. It's all about energy. The environments that you place yourself in, the books that you read, the music that you listen to, the words that you choose, the thoughts that you think, the clothes that you wear, the conversations that you have. The shows that you watch, it is all energy. And what I have noticed is that when I am feeling energized, and when I say energized, I'm talking about not only at the physical level, which is going to be a big focus for me this year, but also at the spiritual and emotional level.

Everything falls into place. It feels like effortlessness. I don't have to "work so hard" to create a result, it's because I am energetically aligned with it. Here's something I want you all to know, and I have seen this over and over in my life and my client's lives and my friends' lives. What you do isn't as important as who you are when you're doing it. For those of you who are members of the School of Self-Image, I created an entire class on your Self-Image Word of the Year, and I've been working through the workbook that accompanies that class to do the work for my word of the year this year. And I wanted to read this to you out of the workbook. It's under the section that says the Be-Do-Have model.

Here's what I said, "I'm about to hand you the secret to the universe. When you deeply understand this concept and you apply it to your life, prepare to be delighted. Navigating life without this model will lead you to frustration and hopelessness. As desperately as you want things to be different, you'll keep feeling stuck. You will go on a diet only to slip back into old patterns within weeks. You'll commit to getting your finances in order only to go weeks without looking at your accounts. You'll waste time on social media even though you've decided that this is the year to grow your business. You'll continuously self-sabotage and you'll wonder what is wrong with me? Nothing is wrong with you, however, your approach is ineffective. I know this from a lot of experience of trying to reach my goals, but spinning in circles. I struggled with my weight for over a decade, ranging from over 200 pounds to under 120. I desperately wanted to have a slim body, so I would do diets and workouts only to come back to being an overweight woman."

My thought process was this, I'm going to go on this diet. This is at the due level and lose the weight, that's the have level so that I can be confident. But I didn't approach my weight loss from confidence. I approached it from fear and self-loathing. I was trying to lose weight while being overweight. Eventually, my actions would match my energy and I'd self-sabotage, creating results to confirm my self-image.

Early on in my business, I was hustling, taking a lot of action, working a lot of hours, and burning myself out. Action is an important part of reaching our goals. However, when that action is being fueled out of desperation, stress and fear, the results you create are not impressive. In order to get what you want, you must be the person who has it. I kept telling myself that when I reached a certain level, the having level by doing certain things, the due level, then I would be a relaxed woman.

Yet, who I was being anxious and stressed, was driving me to do things. Procrastinate caused me to have the same results, stay at a certain level. Many people live their lives this way believing that when they get what they want, then they'll be a certain way. This approach is backwards. The do have be model is destined for failure because you will always create results to confirm your self-image, who you're being. In order to get what you want, you must be the person who has it. If not, you're not an energetic match for it. If you want to fast track your results, you must embrace and live by a very different model that requires being intentional and working from the inside out, the Be-Do-Have model. So the question is this, who do you need to be in order to take the inspired action to create what you deeply want?

That is such a great question, and it's the question that you need to think about as you are choosing your word of the year. Now, again, if you are in the membership, this workbook is so good and there's so much that I left out of it. But I used this workbook to help me not only figure out my word of the year, which I will talk about in that bonus class that I was sharing with you. But I'm also using this workbook to decide how I'm going to embody this energy for an entire year. And the cool thing is I also have a class within the membership that's all about my word of the year, which is energy. And so, I've been going through a lot of that work as well. But for me, it's having this word at the forefront of my days. I want to focus on doing more, thinking more, feeling more things that give me energy and doing less of the things that don't.

My big focus this year as it relates to my word of the year is number one on the mental and emotional level is being extremely mindful, more than I've ever been before about the thoughts that I allow myself to focus on and the words I choose to speak. I want to speak from my future more than I've ever done before. And members of the School of Self-Image, there's a whole class on that as well, speaking from your future, but that's one of the things I want to do. I want to have high vibe, language that goes on in my brain and that I speak out loud. And I already feel that I do a pretty good job of this, but I have noticed how certain things just slip by. For example, I was sharing with Vons the other day. I'm like, "Oh my God, I have so much to do," and the way I said it was not useful.

And he just looked at me, he was like, no, you just have things to do. Just taking so much out of that one phrase felt gave me more energy.

I was like, "Oh yeah, I just have things to do." It wasn't heavy. And so, I want to be even more mindful than I've ever been before about what I choose to focus on, because we're all going to have crazy thoughts. But it doesn't mean we have to choose to focus on them and hang on them and feed them and believe them. We can let those just go on by and then, choose to focus on the thoughts that will help us to create the energy that we need to create what we want. The other major area that I will be focusing on being energized in is my environment. This one is so big. I am all about changing our environments. I know that when you place yourself in expansive environments, you start to see yourself in expansive ways. I want to only work with clients who light me up. I am done taking on clients that drain my energy.

And this is a difficult one you all, because part of me is like, okay, I have such big energy anyway that I can handle it, but this has also been a pattern that I've seen in my life. Like I will suffer because I can handle it. I'm big enough and I just don't want to do that anymore. If we are not an energetic match, that's okay. We can walk our paths separately for a while, and both of us doing the work on ourselves, I feel that we will come back together if we're meant to. But if we're not, that's okay too. It doesn't make me better than or worse than, or there's no hierarchy here. It's just energetic differences. And I, in the past have taken on clients who haven't been an energetic match, and I'm just done with that. I want to work with the people that when we get together, we are fueling each other.

We have momentum going, we are excited, and we all rise together. Also, the people that I spend a lot of time with, this for me, has not been an issue this year. But now that I'm moving to a new place, I'm going to be very mindful about who I involve myself with. Life is too short to be around people whose energy just doesn't match yours. And to create something that you don't yet have, you're going to have to raise your energy to be a match for it. So if you're surrounding yourself with a lot of people who, when you're around them, tend to bring your energy down to their level, it's going to hold you back from reaching the goals that you have. In addition, as it relates to my environment, I just want to constantly pay attention to the places, the spaces, the music, the people, the art, the buildings, the surroundings that light me up, that give me energy and vice versa.

Pay attention to the places that I go and the people that I'm around and the things that I listen to that drain my energy. And that will be my work this year on a daily basis to do more of what lights me up and less of what doesn't. It really is that simple. The other area of my life where I'm going to be focused on my energy is my physical energy. And this one is big. I tend to have a lot of emotional energy, but as I've become older, and my hormones have changed, I have to work harder at increasing my physical energy in addition to the changes in my body.

One of the things that I've noticed about myself is that I'm very cognitive. I am in my head a lot. I love my work, and this causes me to want to just sit around and work and sit at my desk.

And I love it. That actually gives me energy. But I've noticed at the end of the day, I'm like, "But my body is tired. My body didn't get the TLC it needed." And I have been actively working on my physical energy over the past two years, but I know I can do better. So this year, I want to move more. I want to be alive and lively things are always in movement. If you think about trees that are alive, they bend, they flex, they sway, they move. Dead trees don't move, they break. They're stiff, they're not flexible. And so, I want to feel so alive this year. And so, I've been asking myself, what does that look like? And for me, it's starting my day out with movement. It's getting up, it's stretching, it's playing a lot of pickleball, is being outside in the sunshine.

And also, it's just like with the thoughts that we think that give us energy and take away our energy. For me, it's paying attention to the things I consume, the things I eat that give my body energy and the things that I consume that take away my energy. For example, if I eat a lot of sugar, I am lethargic. Sugar does not work in my body. I also know if I drink too much, it takes away my energy. And so, I want to use all of this data that I have on myself, for myself. I want to use this intelligence to help me and to support me in being energized this year. I want to release the patterns, the people, the places, the things that cause me to be out of alignment with my future self. And I know that if I do this for 365 days, you all will be meeting a brand-new version of me a year from now, hopefully like Tonya 7.0.

And I do believe that that version will be even more loving, more kind, more powerful, more expansive than ever. And that my friends, is the power of choosing a word of the year. So you need to think about, for you, what is that energy that if you were Tim Body for one full year would have such a huge impact on your life that would help you to achieve your extraordinary goal that would help you evolve into that version of you that you know is within you? Who is she? What is that word that will support you this year? And of course, I always love hearing everybody's word of the year. So come find me on Instagram at Tonya, T-O-N-Y-A, Leigh, L-E-I-G-H, and share with me what is your 2023 word of the year.

I'm excited to spend this year with you all. We have some exciting things on the horizon, and it's just a joy to be on a journey with such extraordinary humans. So let's go 2023. Cheers. Hey, have you grabbed your free copy of the School of Self-Image Manifesto? If not, what in the world? Head over to schoolofselfimage.com/manifesto and get a copy that teaches you how to think and show up in the areas of mindset, style, and surroundings so that you can transform your self-image.

Enjoy the Show? Don't miss another episode!Pick your favorite platform below:The Self-Image Manifesto

You’re Invited To Live An Extraordinary Life!

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tonya's diary

what i'm thinking about

Who decided life should be perfect?

Perfect is boring. Perfect is fake. Perfect is pretense.

Messy is where it’s at.

If you’re in the School of Self-Image, you get a glimpse into my behind-the-scenes life each month, where I share my ups and downs - the highs and lows.

I’m no longer embarrassed by my messy life. Life is art, and art is messy.

That’s why I want to welcome you to this edition of The Edit - The Artist Issue.

Let’s make our whole life a work of art - where mistakes, failures, and imperfections are welcome. In fact, I think the mess is a little glamorous.

Isn’t it fun to be yourself and still be irresistible anyway?

Love,

P.S. I don’t know if you saw my hilarious imperfection the other day but I’ll share it here, in case you missed it.

Just this week, I did an Instagram Live where, for the life of me, I could not say the word “Christmas gift.” For a split second, I think I actually lost my ability to speak English.

(Thank you if you were one of the people who laughed along with me.)

And you know what? From that same live, a woman reached out to tell me how much the information I shared had helped her.

Don’t be afraid of the mess. As the artist of your life, you have ONE job - to show up!

Do it, and do it messy.

The Thought Edit

A New Thought to Restyle Your Mind

Self-Image is the Ultimate Art Form

The ability to reinvent yourself one thought and action at a time is truly an invaluable gift. If your life is a canvas, your thoughts are the paintbrush. Make it a masterpiece.

SOPHISTICATESIdeas for Elevating from Our Members

A Horse Named Extraordinarywith Lily Richter

“For those of you who are new to SOSI, I have been around since the beginning, pursuing the Extraordinary Goal of completing my lifelong dream of attending a classical art school in Italy. It took two years to finally earn admittance to the Florence Academy of Art and another six months to maneuver all the red tape to get a long-term student VISA.

At age 68, I had never traveled alone or lived abroad before but I found the courage to leave my beloved husband and home in Colorado.

When I got to Florence and moved into my apartment, I was dreadfully homesick and lonely. I was lost in the language issues and cultural differences of trying to actually LIVE in Italy. I had not adequately planned for the rising prices of everything, and the high cost of Florence, especially during an unusually high tourist season.

The panic attacks that I had experienced after a severe trauma ten years ago returned with a vengeance. I finally gave up before classes even started and returned home, dragging my pride and confidence behind me. I swore I would never travel or even do art again!

Over a month has passed now since being thrown from my “Italian horse” and I can start to see more clearly what happened and how I need to proceed. I have decided to return to Florence and the Academy.

After a lot of analysis, I have decided to start with the 12-week program at the Academy instead of jumping into the 3-year curriculum immediately. This time I will be serious about my language training, and I am going first class instead of trying to get by on the cheap, especially for housing.

It will take another year of work but I am getting back in the saddle. By the way, that beautiful horse that threw me was named, ‘Extraordinary’. Someday … I am going to ride her again.

Love, Lily”

A Taste of Style

Making the Everyday Extraordinary

Embrace a Little Glamour

The word glamour comes from the Scottish term gramarye which means magic, enchantment, or spell. So what is glamour? It’s adding an energy of mystery and grace to your persona. It’s elevating the everyday. It’s having little secrets that are only for you, like wearing lingerie beneath your clothes. Those who believe it’s all about showy extravagance don’t yet know the secret: Glamour is about being in love with life. So love what you love without apology - and let that sparkle shine through.

Special Note for my SOSI Ladies: Review the masterclass 3 Ways to Embrace a Glamorous Life with Ciara* for more delicious ideas on embracing glamour.

WATCH THE MASTERCLASSHAUTE HABITS

Habits for Creating the Impossible

Nurture Your Artistic Side

In case you haven’t heard, everyone is creative. Creativity is not just for painters and poets. Your flavor of creativity may be cultivating fascinating conversations or putting together a decadent dinner party. You may be able to organize a group of 3rd graders like it’s nobody’s business - or style your home to a tee. You may scrapbook, code computers, or plan vacations.

Whatever your flavor of creativity is, embrace it and honor it. Cultivate it. Nurture it.

A great way to do so is by taking yourself out on a solo excursion - an “Artist’s Date”. This idea was created by Julia Cameron. Here’s how she explains it:

“The Artist Date is a once-weekly, festive, solo expedition to explore something that interests you. The Artist Date need not be overtly “artistic” — think mischief more than mastery. Artist Dates fire up the imagination. They spark whimsy. They encourage play. Since art is about the play of ideas, they feed our creative work by replenishing our inner well of images and inspiration. When choosing an Artist Date, it is good to ask yourself, “what sounds fun?” — and then allow yourself to try it.”
She also made this great little video to explain it.

WATCH THE VIDEOAnd if it calls to you, I highly recommend reading the book The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. You’ll find it so helpful in cultivating your life as your own work of art.

GRAB THE BOOKIn the Bag

Tools for REinvention

When you can’t go to Paris, bring Paris to you.

My first company French Kiss Life was inspired by my love of Paris. The glamour. The style. The fresh perspective on life. The art. The music. It’s truly a feast for the senses. While I can’t be in Paris as often as I’d like, these gorgeous subscription boxes add a French element to my every day that I just adore.

ORDER A BOXThe Toast

Your Invitation to Connect & Celebrate

My 2022 Holiday Gift to You

I’m starting a new tradition,. Each year, I’ll do a podcast on the gift I wish I could give to you.

Last year, my gift was: The Gift of Self-Validation.

Find out my gift to you this year on this week’s podcast:

My 2022 Holiday Gift to You

LISTEN TO THE PODCASTIt’s the perfect gift if you want to make your life a work of art.

Love,

// TheEDIT

A weekly digital magazine by the School of Self-Image

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Listen to the Full Episode:Happy 2023!

Welcome to today’s episode of the ‘School of Self-Image’ Podcast with host and self-image coach, Tonya Leigh, where personal development meets style. This a go-to podcast for women who desire to transform their self-image so that they can create mind-blowing results in their lives.

Indeed 2023 is a brand new year to welcome and celebrate at once! This is going to be awesome, not just for you but for all of us. Join me as I turn my visions into action and life ~ and if I can, you can do that too!

Today, let me share something exciting and new, The Self-Image Method. As I strongly believe that your self-image shapes your entire life, the key is to put your desires into action. Now is the best time to stop waiting and start creating!

2023 will become our/ your year, claim it!

What You Will Discover with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: 0:43 - Happy New Year! * 1:22 - My ‘Oh my goodness’ moments * 2:02 - The importance of having a schedule * 3:27 - Thinking about your life in a magazine * 6:06 - Reasons why the Self-Image workshop will be your best investment this year * 8:49 - NEW things to watch out for The School of Self-Image this 2023 * 13:52 - 3 things to focus on * 18:58 - The Self-Image Method * 22:19 - 5 steps to the Self-Image Method * 22:25 - Step #1: To access ~ you must choose one life area to focus on * 23:51 - Step #2: To define ~ you must identify what you want and who you want to become to create it * 27:21 Step #3: To edit ~ you must remove things that aren’t working * 27:57 Step #4: To add ~ you must have a goal and be clear of your after * 29:51 Step #5: To refine ~ you must set the next goal and practice steps 1-4 QuotesConnect with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: Join the ‘Live Like An Editor’ Workshop * FREE Download: Self-Image Manifesto* * Join *The School of Self-Image * Follow me on Instagram * Find me on Facebook * Subscribe on Youtube * Watch me on TikTok DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:Happy 2023 my friends. I am so looking forward to this year with you, and I have an exciting announcement, something that I cannot wait to share with you. It's called the self-image method, and I'm telling you all about it in this episode. Let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello my gorgeous friends. Happy New Year to you and your family and all of your loved ones. I don't know about you, but I am so excited for a new year. I am so looking forward to 2023, and right now it's a little bit chaotic at my house. You may hear some tape in the background. Got lots of things going on. We are prepping for our move that's happening really, really soon.

I took a look at my calendar this morning to just get a glimpse of what I need to prepare for over the coming weeks. In full transparency, I had a moment of, oh my goodness. I could feel that overwhelm want to creep in. Then I reminded myself, I was like, "Tonya, there is no hurry. It's all good. Calm down. This is fun. At least you're not bored. Just one thing at a time, sister, one thing at a time." And I gave myself a future self pep talk, and I got to work. And I have been so productive this morning. I have been packing. I'm recording this podcast. I'm getting it done.

And I really do believe that that is the secret. Whenever your brain wants to take you to that place of overwhelm, you have to just remind yourself that, number one, you're always going to have things to do.

I think we daydream about this future place, this future point of time where we're going to arrive and there will no longer be things to do. What I say is, when you're done, you're dead. So thank goodness we still have things to do. We're not done yet.

Then I think you just come back to what's next. What do I need to focus on right now? And for me, scheduling is a lifesaver. But even with all the scheduling that I've done, I've literally scheduled my whole year. I still notice my brain wanting to be overwhelmed about it, and I have to remind myself. I'm like, "Listen, you've scheduled everything. You've got a plan. You're fine." It is a little hectic around here, but it's all good things, and I'm so excited to bring you all along on the journey this year of me not only moving back to my home state of North Carolina, but I'm going to be building a house. We have some exciting changes happening in the business, and I am here to share all of it with you. The ups, the downs, the challenges in hopes that I can inspire you to keep going no matter what, to have a vision for your life and to birth the version of you that can create that vision.

That's what we do within the School of Self-Image. If you want to get a taste of what we do within the membership, if you want to learn how to create your life versus fix your life, big difference there. If you want to learn how to live out your vision and embody the woman that you want to be one intentional choice at a time, I would love to invite you to join me for my most popular workshop that I've ever done. I have kicked off the new year for two years with this workshop, and I just received an email from a woman who did it last year. She said to me that 2022 ended up being the best year she's ever had. She said, "I know it's because I started my year off with the workshop that I'm about to share with you." It is one of my favorite workshops that I've ever taught.

The reason why I love it so much is, number one, it's fun. I think a lot of times when it comes to the new year and the pressure that we put on ourselves with resolutions and the self-image of someone who always lets herself down and always doesn't reach her goals, because that's how a lot of people start the year. This workshop creates this clean slate, and it's so much fun, and it's you learning how to look at your life and yourself through the lens of being an editor.

I want you to think of your life as if it were a magazine that you were creating. You get to choose the cover. You get to choose the name, you get to choose the articles, you get to choose the colors, you get to choose what that magazine represents. You are the editor of that magazine. Well, the same goes for your life. A lot of us don't approach our lives this way. A lot of us wake up and just react to life as if it is happening to us versus understanding we are creating it, and we're actually creating it from our self-image.

When you learn to look at your life and yourself through the lens of being an editor, you start making intentional choices to line up and match what you have decided you want to represent in the world.

That's what this week does. I cannot think of a more beautiful way to start the new year, to set you up for massive success for the entire year. I promise you this. This will be the best investment of your time and your money and it is so inexpensive, you all, it's ridiculous. I had one woman say, "I cannot believe that I got this workshop for what you charged." She was like, "I have paid $1,000 and gotten less than what I got for $37."

But the reason why I price it like this is because, number one, I want you to have the tools to set you up for an incredible year. If you come into my world and you do this workshop and that's all you ever do for me, but it changes your life, I feel like I have accomplished my intention for this workshop. The second reason why I price it so low is because I want to give those of you who maybe are new to me, and you're curious about the School of Self-Image membership and you've been on the fence about joining, but you're just not quite sure yet. I want to give you a good taste of what we're all about because I love women coming into the membership who know this is for me. I have no doubts.

And so by doing this workshop you'll get a sense of like, is this something I want to continue doing? Do I want to use this membership to help me actually learn even more tools? Because there are way more tools within the membership, to help me completely transform my self-image to expand what is possible for me. That's the other reason. It is only $37 and you get to have it for life. Come and join us. I promise you, you will not be disappointed.

Go to schoolofselfimage.com/workshop to read all about the Live like an editor five day workshop. I cannot wait to see you there. Seriously, it's one of the most fun things that I do every year, and share it with your friends. A lot of women do that. They love to share it with their best friend, and they do it together and they brainstorm and set crazy extraordinary intentions for the year together, which is powerful.

The more people in your world that are doing this work with you, the better chances you have of being successful because you all rise together. You all hold bigger expectations for each other, and you all keep supporting and cheering each other on. Please share this with your friends as well.

Okay, that might have been one of my longest intros ever to a podcast. I don't know. I'm thinking it might win. But it's the first of the year. I got a lot to update you all on. Another update that I have, and this is especially for those of you within the School of Self-Image membership.

We have been working behind the scenes to create an even better experience for you. I am always looking at how I can personally expand my own self-image and business image to provide even more value and an even better experience for members.

One of the things I want you all to know is that you will always want to improve. I feel like this holds so many of you back. You want to come out of the gate with everything being perfect. You want to be putting out work that people who've been doing this for years are finally getting to, and you let that hold you back. I always encourage my clients, just get started. Put your work out there. Yes, do the best you can with what you have and where you are right now. But do not let perfectionism stop you. I will tell you all, since the very beginning, since the very beginning, I have just constantly and consistently been putting my work out there. I do believe that is one of the big reasons for my success. It hasn't always been great work.

There have been things that I've put out into the world that I look at now and I'm like, ugh. But I'm also really proud that I didn't let perfectionism stop me. It took those experiences for me to learn what didn't work and what could possibly work and applying that knowledge to continuously expand. When I started this membership, I thought it was incredible. We did a really good job even though in the very beginning and some of you all were around for that, we had some hiccups that were not pretty, mostly tech issues of payments. And it was just something that we never dealt with before, and we worked our darnedest behind the scenes to correct everything. But we had some people that were understandably upset. I get it. Again, we did everything we could to reconcile because my big value in business is delighting my customers. I want all of you to feel delighted when you have any kind of contact with the School of Self-Image.

But I'm also really proud that we did it, and we learned so much. The membership is over two years old now, and I have grown so much as a CEO. I've grown so much as a coach, and I've grown so much in the world of self-image. When I started the School of Self-Image, the term itself, self-image was not one that I had heard in the personal development space, except for later on after I started the membership. I found some videos by Bob Proctor, may he rest in peace, that talked about the power of your self-image. I had also read a book years ago by Maxwell Maltz called Psycho Cybernetics, one of the most incredible books that I'd ever read that is all about self-image psychology.

Since I started the membership and started the school, I've been hearing more and more people talk about self-image. I've been seeing people call themselves self-image coaches, and it's just a topic that a lot of people are talking about more and I'm so happy. The reason why is it really is creating your entire life and trying to get results in your life without addressing your self-image is going to just backfire quite honestly.

If you do not catch up with your results, you will sabotage your results every single time. This is the work that we do within the School of Self-Image. We focus on transforming how we see ourselves so that we can create lasting results, whether it's growing our businesses or having better relationships or having better health or having more money, whatever it is that you want.

We focus on the self-image aspect because I know that when you identify as someone, then that is who you are and you will work to prove yourselves true over and over again. If you identify as someone who is overwhelmed, that will be the result that you produce. If you identify as someone who is not good in relationships, then that will be what you produce. As you can see, you cannot create results without changing your identity, and that's what self-image work is all about.

Over the past two years we have done that within the membership by focusing on three areas, your mindset, your style, and your surroundings, your environment. A lot of personal development experts only talk about the mind. They will say that you do not need to change your circumstance. All you need to do is change your thought. Sometimes that is really good advice and sometimes it is not. Let me tell you why. Your environment is mirroring back to you who you think you are. If you keep staying in the same environments that keep triggering the same thoughts, you're going to keep perpetuating the same self-image.

Now, there is some truth in staying where you are when you think the problem is your environment and not your thinking, and you're being a victim. What this looks like ... let me give you an example just so you know. Let's say you are in a job and you are miserable. And you are blaming your job for your misery without ever questioning you. So you leave that job, and you go to the next job. And all of a sudden you find a couple weeks in, maybe a couple months in, maybe a couple years in, you're right back to having the same kind of relationship with that new job that you had with the old one. The reason is you thought it was the job. You blamed the job. You blamed your boss. You blamed your coworkers. You ran from that situation expecting the next place of employment to be better. But you never looked at you, and said, "Hey, what did I contribute to that situation? What was my thinking?" You just thought, hey, it's everybody else's fault, so I'm going to run from this to the next thing.

I used to do this all of the time, so I get it. I didn't understand that it was me. But that's very different than being like, "Hey, I know that I'm contributing to this. I know that I'm co-creating this, and I know that I need to look at my thoughts. However, I know that if I place myself in a new environment for my own betterment, for my own sanity, I will have a better chance of changing how I see myself."

It's like I tell people, I'm like, "Listen. Can you be happy around a bunch of people who are complaining, or a bunch of people who don't believe in you, a bunch of people telling you that it's not possible for you?" Yeah, you can by working on your thoughts around it, 100%.

But it takes so much effort. Why? Why not just pick yourself up and put you around people that are more positive, who believe in you, who do support you. Now when those people aren't available, it's good to have the tools to be able to manage your own mind. But I just believe life is hard enough. Why do we make it harder? I think sometimes changing your circumstance from a place of wanting the best for yourself, not from a place of being a victim, but just from the place of I'm going to give myself the best shot at creating what I want to create and becoming who I want to become by placing myself in an environment where it's easier to birth and bloom into that version of me. This is exactly why we talk about surroundings and style within the School of Self-Image because those two things impact how you see yourself.

When you put yourself in new environments, it's so much easier to see yourself in new ways. If those environments are expansive environments, you start to see yourself in expansive way. Someone in our private group for the membership posted something about if you put a big fish in a small tank, it will never grow to be the size it was meant to be.

Then I did some research and I found out how they've actually been able to study fish that are kept in too small of a tank and how they become depressed and irritable, and they die in early death. I feel like that's what happens to a lot of us unfortunately when we are in small environments. When I say small, I mean small minded because our souls are here to be expansive and to grow and to experience and to achieve. When we place ourselves in environments that don't support that, it can cause us to be irritable. We know something's wrong, but we maybe can't quite put our finger on it. Well, maybe you need to change your environment, or maybe you need to go buy yourself a new jacket so you see yourself in a different way.

Okay, so that was a big talk to get us to where I want to go. But I think it's important for those of you who are especially new to the School of Self-Image that you understand what we're all about and what we focus on. But today I want to share with you something new and exciting that goes beyond the three pillars that we focus on. It is the process that we use in those three pillars to completely transform our self-image. It's something that I created last year, I've never shared it except for my School of Self-Image members. I'm embarrassed to say, and I'm not pulling up my calendar right now because I'm on a roll, and we're just going to keep talking. But I think by now, the School of Self-Image members have heard of it because I'm throwing a release party for the membership.

And I think it's probably the day before this comes out. It might be the day after. But I'm going to be going deep into detail with the members about this new method.

It is a method. It's called the self-image method. It is five elegant steps to creating yourself one intentional day at a time. I can't wait to share with you how this method came to be because I've been thinking about how I work with clients and how I've worked with clients for years, but I never had a process to it except we focused on thoughts and feelings and then we also looked at our environment and our style and how they're all impacting each other.

But one day last year, I decided to do a big closet clean out. I decided I'm going to focus on my closet, and I did this huge clean out. When I was hanging the last dress into my closet, I had this big aha. I realized that the way I had gone about cleaning out my closet was the exact method that I had used for years to completely transform my self-image and completely change my life. I immediately grabbed in my journal and wrote it all down. It was just like one big brain dump of the method that I had just used for my closet that I had used for so long. Then I started to think about all of my coaching calls and how I think about my client's process. I went back and listened to some of the coaching calls within the membership, and I was like, "Oh my goodness, this is the way that I am always thinking about where my clients are in their journey." It's even how I go about my days thinking about how to live my days deliberately.

Are you all ready to hear about the self-image method? And listen, for those of you in the membership, we go way into detail. There is a whole training with a video for each steps of the method and a gorgeous, and when I say gorgeous, y'all know that the stuff that we put into the membership is not only powerful in terms of the results that it helps you create in your life, but it's also so beautiful. Aesthetics mean a lot in our company. Make sure you check out the gorgeous workbook to accompany the self-image method.

Here are the five steps to the self-image method. Step number one is to assess, and you need to decide which area of your life you're going to start with. One of the things that I see hold so many people back is they want to change every area all at once. That is such an overwhelming feat that you don't get started on anything. I think picking one area that you're going to do your self-image work in initially is going to have such a positive impact on all the areas.

Within the self-image method, we suggest nine different areas, and you choose one that you are going to focus on. The way to think about this is let's pretend that you have a messy house. Maybe it's really cluttered. That's like our brains.

You need to decide what part of your brain are we going to focus on, just like you would look around your house and be like, what area of my house am I either inspired to work on first or least satisfied with? I want to tackle it first. It doesn't matter. You just pick an area and you assess who you are being in that area. You assess how you're feeling in that area. You assess what thoughts you have in this area. And so that's step one.

Step number two is to define. You've picked out your area. Now you need to define what do I want in this area of my life? This is where a lot of people get stuck because they don't know the secret that I know. Are you ready for it? You get to want whatever you want without apology. You do not need permission. You do not need someone else's blessing. You do not need proof. You just get to want it. The only thing that I suggest is that you like your reason for wanting it. That's it. You get to want a Bugatti. You get to want to sell everything and move into a trailer. You just have to look at why do I want it.Why is it important to me? And if you like your why, then let's get busy in creating that for you.

But you can't just stop there. And this is where a lot of you all are slowing yourself down, is you define what you want, but sometimes what you've defined isn't clear enough. I go through all of this in the self-image method. I help you get super, super clear on what we're doing. But beyond that, you also need to define who you need to become to create that. I like to call this a case study of your future self. Who is she? How is she different from the version of you now? How is she thinking? How is she dressing? How is she showing up? How does she think about the world? How does she think about money? How does she think about men? How does she think about her family? How does she think about herself? That's the biggest one. You have to get really clear on who she is.

A lot of you all are trying to create results without changing you, without changing your being. You're so focused on doing, that you fail to remember it's who you're being that's creating your life and letting your doing come from a new being. That's when you have some crazy magical results happen in your life. So that's step two. You must define what you want and who you need to become to create it.

The next three steps are when we get into action. For those of you in the membership this year, we're focused on action. We're not going to sit around and consume a lot of information this year, even though I am going to be teaching amazing classes. I am building this membership for women who are ready to take action because I know it feels good to sit around and consume a lot. It makes you feel like you're doing something in the moment, but you're not making progress. I want every single one of you in the membership this year to create an extraordinary after story. Do you know why? Well, I want it for you, but I also want it for me.

My goal, my extraordinary goal is to collect 5,000 after stories. I want to see women show that this works. I want to see women prove to themselves what they're really capable of. I want women to be examples for their daughters and their mothers and their sisters and their community that you don't have to keep being who everybody's told you that you should be.

That means that we have to get to work and we have to take action. That's what steps three through five are. Step three, and I want you to understand this is a daily process, and it is included in your daily three journal for those of you in the membership, and we go into detail. But you're going to be editing one thing from your life every single day. Removing something, a thought, a thing, a person, an energy, you got to get rid of it. You can't just keep piling things into your life without removing things that aren't working. I'm giving you all the very simplified version of the self-image method, but you'll get the gist of what it's all about. So edit, that's step three.

Step four is to add. I think about when I was in my closet. I assessed where we were going to focus and what was going on in there, what was working, what wasn't. I defined what I wanted my closet to look like and to feel like. I had a goal for my closet. I also thought about the version of me who lived in that closet. I thought about the woman I was becoming and I wanted to curate a closet that represented her. I got clear on my after, and then I had to take a lot. I took everything out actually. That's not so easy to do in your life. It's like remove every person, every thought in your head, every item you own, and then put them back one by one as you see fitting into your vision. But you can do some version of that.

Often, I'll look around at my life and I'll say, does this thing belong in my future's life, my future self's life? Does she have this book? Is she hanging out with this person? Would she choose this man again? Would she choose this outfit again? That doesn't mean you have to get rid of it, but it's just good to be honest with yourself. You can do that as you're going throughout your day. But with my closet, I removed everything, and then I decided what got added back in. Every day thinking, what do I need to remove? What do I need to edit? And then what do I need to add? What kind of thought do I need to be thinking? What kind of people do I need to put into my life? What kind of clothes do I need to be wearing? What in my environment do I need to add in to remind me of who I'm becoming? That's step four. We add.

And then the final step is refine. My friends, this is an ongoing practice. For any of you who are daydreaming about a day when you don't have to put in the effort, if you're daydreaming about a day that you have finally arrived and no work will be required of you. If you're dreaming about a day where life gets super, super easy, I fear that you're just setting yourself up for failure.

You're setting yourself up for disappointment because what I know about people like us is if we just had the goal that we have today and we achieved it and then we never wanted anything else, we could coast. But that's not who we are. We're always going to want to set the next goal and the next goal because I feel like we know deep down we came here to evolve. That is the purpose of our existence, and that's going to look different for all of us. But it's why we probably have this insatiable hunger.

I don't think that's a bad thing as long as you're appreciating your journey, as long as you are creating from a place of enoughness and excitement and joy, not from a place of I'm not good enough or I'm not there yet, and over there so much better than here, so I'm going to make myself miserable trying to get to happiness. That doesn't work. There are no happy endings from unhappy journeys. You can't go down the road of unhappy and expect to arrive in happiness. It just doesn't work that way.

Because we are always going to be desiring and wanting and having goals, we're always going to be in that self-image that we need to grow. We're always going to be encountering limiting beliefs, which cause us to have negative emotion. It is an ongoing practice, but when you see this is normal and you see negative emotion as just part of life and you know that this is just part of the process and it's a constant refinement, then you can relax and that's when it gets super fun. You can just enjoy the journey. Within the membership, our refinement, our step five is the daily practice of steps one through four and it's in your daily three journal.

We just recreated the whole daily three journal to mimic these five steps. It is so good. I've been using it for the last month since I created it, and it really is phenomenal. I've been playing around with making it extraordinary, and I've been working with some of my team members. Shout out to Julie. Her and I have been working hand in hand. How can we really just take this self-image method and take the daily three journal that we had and fuse those two to create an even better daily practice to help you get results.

I am so excited about the self-image method. I've been using the self-image method since I created it in my business. Going through the assessment, the definition, what needs to go, what I need to add, and then the refinement stage, which is the ongoing practice. I've used it in my health and wellbeing. I've used it in my relationships. I've been playing around with this method in a lot of areas of my life, and it works. It is so good. I am so excited to share it with all of you who are in the membership. If you're not in the membership, what in the world? Come join us for the Live Like an Editor workshop, so you can get a taste of what we are all about and learn a powerful process and a powerful way to start your year. Go to schoolofselfimage.com/workshop, and I will see you there.

Have a beautiful, beautiful week everyone, and I am so excited to spend this year with you. Let's rock 2023. Cheers everyone.

Enjoy the Show? Don't miss another episode!Pick your favorite platform below:The Self-Image Manifesto

You’re Invited To Live An Extraordinary Life!

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tonya's diary

what i'm thinking about

There’s something special about firsts.

Your first kiss
Your first car
Your first paycheck
Your first child

When did you have your last “first?”

If we’re not careful, we can stop experiencing firsts as we get older. We get into a rut, doing the same things over and over.

This is exactly why I made it my mission to experience more firsts in 2022… Most were planned. A few were unexpected.

I’m sharing them all with you in this week’s podcast, in the hopes that you will commit to having more firsts in your life in 2023.

The Importance of Firsts (Plus My Favorite Firsts of 2022)

LISTEN TO THE PODCASTLife can be filled with newness if we let it, ~Contact.FirstName~.

But only if we let it…

Welcome to The Newness Issue. How sweet it is.

Love,

The Thought Edit

A New Thought to Restyle Your Mind

Being Comfortable as a Beginner

When we’re kids, we don’t mind being new at something. In fact, it excites us. We play. We fall. We try new things with joy and wonder. This week, ~Contact.FirstName~, try on a “beginner’s mind.” Allow yourself to just let go and not have it all figured out. I promise life is more fun that way.

SOPHISTICATESIdeas for Elevating from Our Members

On Becoming a 6-Figure Woman
with Traci Nadine

“One year ago I took a leap and joined the School of Self-Image to work on me. To learn how to not just live but to experience life.

And you know what? I have ZERO regrets.

I set an EG to pay off $50,000 in debt and you know what? I blew through that goal like it was made of straw!

I have:

Become more disciplined
Learned to care less about other people’s thoughts about me
Realized through the Wealthy Woman program that money is ABUNDANT and when challenges (formerly called problems) arise, I can manage them all like a Boss! And Sisters! I have some extraordinary news to share! Recently, as I’ve gone through the SOSI work, I told myself I will be a 6-figure woman. Well, today I signed papers and I am a 6-figure woman!

This is more than just achieving a goal. This is doing the work and practicing living from my future.”

A Taste of Style

Making the Everyday Extraordinary

A Daring Dip to Discover

Growing up with a lot of body shame, I admired women who were comfortable in their own skin. I knew that I would never be free as long as I was trying to hide my body.

This is exactly why I decided to go sk*nny dipping many years ago. And you know what? I did it with a group of fabulous 70-year-old women by my side.

It was the most beautiful and liberating moment — women enjoying the feeling of the warm Caribbean water and sunshine. No shame. Just joy and pleasure.

I highly recommend you try it.

HAUTE HABITS

Habits for Creating the Impossible

Get Out of That Playlist Rut

I see some of you out there, rocking that same exact playlist week after week. Try on some new music once in a while! Here’s a little sensual mix tape I made. It’s an oldie but an oh-so-goodie.

LISTEN TO THE MIX TAPEIn the Bag

Tools for REinvention

Put a Little More (Style) Drama in Your Life!

Style is a great way to introduce newness to your life - but only if you allow yourself to try things on.

With my sleeves, like all things, I’m a go-big or go-home kind of gal. In fact, I’m a huge fan of dramatic style - a statement necklace, a bold print… or big, puffy sleeves. (I traded life-drama for fashion-drama a long time ago.)

I bought this shirt at the beginning of the season, and without fail, I receive compliments each time I wear it.

You need this drama in your life, ~Contact.FirstName~!

GET THESE TOPThe Toast

Your Invitation to Connect & Celebrate

Celebrate Life Around the World

Each of us experiences “celebration” a certain way - our way - but I find it fascinating to see how the rest of the world celebrates.

Millions of tiny lanterns
Running with tomatoes
Huge headdresses
Head-to-toe colorful body powder
Motorcycles in the desert
Glamour on gondolas

Just look at this little list of celebrations around the world.

CELEBRATE IN A NEW WAY!The world is full of fascinating firsts, ~Contact.FirstName~.

All you have to do is reach out to grab them.

You can start with some of mine if they resonate. I’ve shared them in this week’s podcast.

The Importance of Firsts (Plus My Favorite Firsts of 2022)

LISTEN TO THE PODCASTWhat’s your favorite first of 2022? Tell me over on Instagram at @tonyaleigh

Here’s to you and me - and filling our lives with firsts - for the rest of our lives.

Cheers,

// TheEDIT

A weekly digital magazine by the School of Self-Image

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tonya's diary

what i'm thinking about

Do you have a sister?

I always wanted an older sister.

I imagined that she would let me borrow her clothes, give me advice about boys - and always have my back.

Decades later, when I launched the School of Self-Image, women spontaneously started calling each other #sosisisters - right from the beginning.

And at that point, I realized that many of them saw me as their big sister. I had “accidentally” created a sisterhood with thousands of sisters all around the world. How cool is that?

So what is a sisterhood?

It’s meeting a fellow woman where she is.
It’s encouraging her to be her best self.
It’s sharing common desires and values.
It’s being non-judgmental.
It’s offering support/advice when she needs it.
It’s celebrating each other.

And when we can, it’s being a slipstream for one another.

A slipstream is the current of air or water behind a moving vehicle, like a boat, a car, or even a bicycle.

In the personal development world, being a slipstream for someone is like carrying them along in your current, collapsing time and helping them to move further, faster than they could on their own.

If you speak to any successful person, they’ve had slipstreams, and I think this is much the value of sisterhood - the sisters you choose, anyway.

In fact, I was so fascinated with the idea of slipstreams, which I learned from the book Slipstream Time Hacking by Benjamin Hardy, that I recorded this week’s episode:

Takeaways from Slipstream Time Hacking by Benjamin Hardy

LISTEN TO THE PODCASTWelcome to The Sisterhood Issue of The Edit, ~Contact.FirstName~- all about creating a sisterhood of your very own.

After all, family isn’t just the one you get at birth. Sometimes, the one you choose is what makes all the difference in a life well-lived.

Cheers,

The Thought Edit

A New Thought to Restyle Your Mind

The Best Way to Be Your Own Bestie

Y’all know I can’t start The Sisterhood Issue without mentioning the importance of being your own bestie. Here’s my definition of a bestie:

Fiercely loyal
Brutal honesty - but always said with love
Reminds you to prioritize your own happiness
Considers your feelings
Encourages you
Brings out the best in you

Do you have your own back, no matter what, ~Contact.FirstName~? Here’s the best way to know:

Observe your own thoughts throughout the day and ask yourself, “Would I say these exact same words to my bestie?”

SOPHISTICATESIdeas for Elevating from Our Members

A Magical Sisterhoodwith Arissa El-Amin

“We had a great time! A total of ten SOSI sisters were at the Charlotte brunch today. We enjoyed great food, conversation, and fun.”

A P.S. note from Tonya: It makes me smile when I see the ladies from the School of Self-Image meeting up all over the world. How fun!

A Taste of Style

Making the Everyday Extraordinary

Bringing Back the Sleepover

I don’t know about you but I love a good sleepover with girlfriends - especially the jammies. Now that I’m thinking about it, I may just plan a chic brunch where all the women are invited to wear their favorite pajamas.

Here are some of my favorites.

GET THESE JAMMIESHAUTE HABITS

Habits for Creating the Impossible

Nurture Your Casual Friendships

Connection is one of my highest values, ~Contact.FirstName~. In a recent class I created for the School of Self-Image, I talked about three circles of friends.

Best Friends - Your innermost circle
Casual Friends - You enjoy their company on occasion
Acquaintances - You only know a few details about them but say a friendly hello when you see them

We often think about nurturing our closest friendships but this week’ Haute Habit is to nurture group #2 - your casual friendships. Sometimes, this network can be the most fruitful in terms of expanding your self-image.

So stretch yourself a little this week and reconnect with a casual friend who has the potential to bloom into a deeper bond.

In the Bag

Tools for REinvention

The Story of You and Me

Want an incredible gift idea for a friend? How about a photobook filled with memories of the two of you? Here’s one I love.

GET THE BOOKThe Toast

Your Invitation to Connect & Celebrate

Send a Little Love Text Today

The other day, a friend sent me the sweetest text out of the blue:

You continuously inspire me. Thank you for showing me how to be a badass woman. I love you.

Three sentences made my day.

To wrap up this edition of The Edit, reach out to a friend right now. A few sentences could be exactly what she needs to hear.

Women thrive when in the presence of other encouraging and supportive women. We need each other. We weren’t meant to do life alone.

I’m glad you’re a sister on this journey, ~Contact.FirstName~.

Love,

// TheEDIT

A weekly digital magazine by the School of Self-Image

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Listen to the Full Episode:‘Tis the season of giving!

Holidays are just around the corner and I can’t wait to celebrate them. But for now, let me give you a gift that can start to change your life!

2022 has been a fantastic year for me and another 365 days will come in. I’m starting to plan out my next year and what I can share for now is that I’m very excited about 2023. How about you? Are you feeling the same excitement as I do? If yes, then I’m happy for you and if not, I got you covered!

Today, I’ll share a gift with you. This is something intangible but for me is the most important and first bold move to make your next year a breakthrough. If you’re ready, then head over to listen to the full episode of this topic.

What You Will Discover with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: 0:53 - 2021 gift of self-validation * 2:40 - The gift of fun * 4:08 - Difference between fun as an action from feeling * 5:58 - The benefits of having fun * 14:29 - The negative impact when you’re not having fun * 16:12 - The importance of humor * 18:14 - How to create your own flavor of fun * 23:20 - Reasons why you prioritize fun in your life QuotesConnect with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: FREE Download: Self-Image Manifesto* * Join *The School of Self-Image * Follow me on Instagram * Find me on Facebook * Subscribe on Youtube * Watch me on TikTok DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:Mary Oliver posed the question, are you breathing a little and calling it a life? In this episode of the podcast, I want to give you a gift. In fact, I was thinking if I could give you anything for the holidays, what would it be? And here's a hint. It is so needed in our world right now. In a world that's so stressed and so serious and so uptight, this is a gift that will change your life. You ready for it? Let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello my beautiful friends. Welcome to this episode of the podcast. We are about to head into the holidays. So crazy to believe that another year is almost past. And last year I did a whole episode on a gift that I wanted to give you. And it was the first time I'd ever done an episode like that. And I decided I want to make this a tradition. Every single year, I want to think about if I can give this community any gift, what would that gift be? So I encourage you to go back and actually listen to last year's podcast because the gift that I gave you was the gift of self-validation, not waiting for other people to tell you that you're good enough or that you're doing a great job. Because if we wait for that, we're often very disappointed. We end up letting ourselves down and we put our own feeling state, our own wellness, our own psychological welfare in somebody else's hands.

Never a good idea, my friends. So I was thinking about the gift that I wanted to give you this year and I wrote down a bunch of things.

And a lot of them were very heavy and very serious. One of them was like the gift of self-acceptance, the gift of forgiveness. And listen, all of those things are very important, very important. But I was like, this doesn't feel right. This isn't what I want to give people. What do people really need right now? And the word that came to mind, my brain sort of laughed at, it was like, no, people don't need this right now, you need to be more serious. And this is when I knew it was exactly what people needed.

The gift I wanted to give you all, if I could give you anything, it would be the gift of fun. Are you ready to have more fun?

I don't know about you all, but the world can feel heavy, especially right now with so much information out there and so many opinions about how you should think and how you should live your life and all of the terrible things. Because usually that's reported, the terrible things. It feels like just heavy. And I think fun and love and joy is an antidote to all of that.

And so I want to encourage all of you that are listening to this podcast to decide that you are going to have more fun in your life. And I want to sell you on why this is so important. Because if you don't trust fun, you will continuously put it on the back burner. And a lot of people will don't trust fun. We're taught that fun gets you in trouble, that you can't reach your goals if you're having fun. And that you need to be serious to be taken serious. And all of this stuff that makes it so that fun is something that we put on the back burner. But secretly we're all dying to experience it. We're dying to have a lighter spirit and to laugh more and enjoy our lives more. And so we have to get comfortable with fun.

So when it comes to fun, you have to ask yourself, is it an action or is it a feeling? And I personally think it's both. I think there are things that you can do that create a feeling of fun in your body. And I also think that you can have that feeling of fun that you can infuse into everything that you do. The party lives within you. I want you to really take that statement to heart. The party is within you. It's not something that you have to go out there and find. It's not something that is outside of you. It is within you. And you can take that feeling and you can infuse it into your work days. You can infuse it into your business. You can infuse it into your home because it's an energy that you create and then you share it with the world.

Now when it comes to fun, the first step is to feel safe in having fun. And this one's big. A lot of people don't feel safe. They feel like if they have fun, their life is going to fall apart. And it's because we're ingrained with this belief system like you get to play after you work. Play is something that is reserved until later.

If you want to be taken serious, then you shouldn't have fun. Like all of these subliminal messages that we hear as a kid, we end up carrying into our adulthood and it makes us pretty miserable.

And then you think about what is the result of not having fun in your life? What do you sacrifice when you don't have fun? I believe number one, you sacrifice your health. Yes, fun is good for your health. Studies have shown that fun gives you more energy. When you're laughing, when you are enjoying your life, it's releasing stress. And it also boosts serotonin levels. So serotonin is that feel good neurotransmitter. And when you don't have enough serotonin, you can have poor sleep patterns, a lot of stress and a lot of anxiety. And so by having fun, you're releasing and boosting your serotonin so you're sleeping better and you're more relaxed and you have a better outlook on life.

Fun also, believe it or not, makes you more productive. When we're having fun, we're lighter, we're not taking ourselves or life too seriously. And that kind of mentality, that kind of attitude will inspire you to show up and get your work done and not be such a perfectionist. And to enjoy the journey. I'm always asking myself, how can I have fun doing this? And the moment I switch into a fun affect, I'm in a fun mood, I'm more creative, I'm able to actually get more done. And the best part is I enjoy the process.

Fun also gives you youth. It makes you youthful. Kids love to play. They love to have fun. And that energy is what we associate with youth. So for those of you who are afraid of getting older and you're afraid of aging, I'm telling you, one of the best things you can do is commit to having more fun in your life. One of the biggest compliments that I get is from my daughter and her friends who say, "We can't even keep up with you. You are having way more fun than we are having."

And listen, I do it on purpose. It's not just because fun falls in my lap, I create it, I am it. I love to think thoughts that are fun and exciting, and then that leads me to show up in fun ways and infuse fun into everything that I do. And then I also love to do fun things. Me and my family, we love games. We play games all of the time. We play card games, we play board games. And most recently, I've started playing pickleball. And I am obsessed. I seriously can't stop playing. I'm like, when am I going to get some work done? But I am having so much fun. And what I notice is that when I am engaging in fun and then I show up to work, the quality of my work is better and everything is energy. And so even if I'm writing an email, but I'm in that state of fun because I'm infusing my life with fun, I'm thinking fun thoughts, that energy can be felt even through the words that I write.

And that's the other benefit of fun is that you become magnetic because people love to be around fun people, especially when everybody's so serious and so dark. Someone walks into a room that's full of light and is having fun, people want to gravitate towards them because they want that in their lives. And so by being fun, you are going to be an example of how you can live a life and you're also going to attract more fun people into your life because the fun people are looking for other fun people. And then you will also attract people who just want to be inspired by you. They want to have what you are having. Having more fun improves your relationships. If you're not having fun, it tells them you're stressed. You're probably holding a lot of tension. Maybe you become snappy, maybe you're moody, and that is felt and experienced in your relationships.

I'm telling you, the more fun I have, the better my relationships get and I inspire the people around me to have more fun and to be okay with it, to feel safe with it. And what you're going to notice is that your life will get better the more fun you have. Having more fun actually helped me lose weight all those years ago. Because you see, I was turning to food for my source of pleasure and joy. I didn't have much in my life going on at the time. And so food was that one thing that gave me a hit of dopamine that made me feel good in a moment, temporarily. But then I had to deal with the guilt and the shame that followed binging on food. And so I realized I needed to have more diversity in my life in terms of pleasure and fun so that I didn't need food to fill that gap.

And so I started to look at how I could have more fun. What were the activities that I could enjoy? What are new hobbies I could learn? What are things that I could read and participate in that was interesting and fun? And over time, I had so much fun outside of food that food became something that I enjoyed when I was eating, but it wasn't something that I needed all of the time to fill this hole. And from that experience, I realize what Martha Beck has said before. Having fun is not a diversion from a successful life, it's the pathway to it. I literally have built this life by not only being the fun, but by also following the fun. Asking myself, what would be fun to learn? What would be fun to create? Who would it be fun to meet? How can I have more fun doing this? How can I be more fun?

Asking these types of questions have allowed me to access this deep inner joy that I remember having as a kid, but I lost it somewhere in my late teens, early adulthood. And I lost it through what I like to call life chipping. These little hurts, these little disappointments, these little setbacks, the little obligations that you don't really want to do. All of these things just chip away at your natural state of being.

Because I feel like our natural state of being is fun and joy and light and love, but then life happens and all these little chips chip away at who we really are. And so the work is not finding that version of you again because you haven't lost her, she's still within you. It's just getting reacquainted with her, trusting her, and allowing her to have a little say in your life.

When I think about the life I'm living today, I, a hundred percent, believe that having more fun has led to this life. I remember thinking, wouldn't it be fun to learn about wine? And that led me to go to sommelier school. Then I thought, wouldn't it be fun to go to Paris and to really dive into the world of food and wine? And from that, I discovered a whole new way of life that impacted me on such a deep level and eventually turned into a program called Slim Chic and Savvy that I ran for years. I used to go to New York City a lot, so much fun. And being there in that energy and then watching movies like Breakfast at Tiffany's inspired me to create Modern Day Icon, another one of my popular programs.

I have so many examples of how fun has had a positive impact on my life. And I share that with you because I know that some of you have fear around having more fun. But do you know what else I have evidence for now? The negative impact on my life when I forget to have fun. About four or five years ago when my daughter was sick, I stopped having a lot of fun. And guess what happened? It impacted my health. And while I kept showing up for my business and my business was growing, it was hard. And I wasn't having a lot of fun doing it because I wasn't being fun, and understandably so. When your kid is sick, it's hard to be like woo-hoo, party on. I wasn't in that state. But that experience did show me that the more fun I have, the better my life gets. And when I forget to have fun, when I stop having fun, it has a negative impact on my life.

So in thinking about you and wanting to gift you the gift of fun, I was thinking about what I can offer you that will help you to get into a fun mindset. Now if you are in the School of Self-image membership, we have a whole module on this topic because it's a recurring story that I hear from women. I've just lost myself. I forgot how to have fun. I'm so serious. One woman told me, she was like, "I'm such a drag to be around now." And she took this class and it literally changed her life. In fact, I saw her recently at my event and she was like, "Last year was the most fun I've ever had." And so I teach this in the membership. So if you're in the membership, go check out the class called A Fun Mindset.

But for those of you who are listening, first of all, fun starts from within. You could be doing the most fun thing and be miserable because your thoughts aren't fun.

And so you need to monitor your thinking. Are you thinking thoughts that are light and energizing and maybe humorous, joyful, fun? Or are you thinking thoughts that are heavy and feel like a burden and discouraging and maybe even dark? Start to shift your thinking even just a little bit. I always say change your thinking just a little bit every single day over time, you'll have a completely new mindset, completely new set of beliefs. One of the things that I find to be effective is to find the humor in my crazy brain. So sometimes I'll catch myself thinking something ridiculous, something so absurd, so limiting, so full of fear that I literally will turn it into a comedy. I'm like, look at this crazy mess in your brain. Like, you're definitely being a little dramatic here.

And just finding the humor in my crazy human brain lightens the load a little bit. So maybe if you're having a hard time accessing better feeling thoughts, can you find the humor and what you're currently thinking? Everything has a little bit of humor in it. Comedians will tell you that. And it's a way to make life more bearable is finding the humor in what life has handed you and finding the humor and what your brain is trying to hand you.

Beyond your mindset, it's time for you to discover what is fun for you. I want to encourage you to go on a fun scavenger hunt. In fact, what if you made next year just one big fun scavenger hunt? Everyone enjoys fun in a different way. For some people going out dancing is super fun. For other people that would be horrific, they would never want to do that. For some people, going shopping is fun. Then there are those people who would rather have their eyeballs gouged out than to go shopping.

And so don't think just because it's fun for someone else that it should be fun for you. You are such a unique, intricate, amazing human being. We need to figure out what is your flavor of fun. And you know what that's going to require? That you try a lot of things with the understanding you may not like them all. Chances are you won't.

I recently did a podcast about having more first in your life. And I think in order to have a fun life, you need to intentionally go out there and have more first. The first time experiencing something, knowing sometimes you're never going to want to experience that again. But now you know. You wouldn't know that until you went out there and did it for the first time.

And so figuring out what is fun for you requires that you do things that aren't fun. But in that doing, you're going to find more out about yourself and what you enjoy. And when you find something that you really, really love and enjoy, incorporate that into your life, make it a priority.

When it comes to the topic of fun, I told the women in the membership, I was like, "Listen, we are women who don't wait for others to create our fun."

It's a big mistake that I see a lot of people making. They sit around and they watch other people having fun on Instagram. They hear about their friends having fun. And then they become bitter because they're not having fun. They're wanting someone else to create that for them. I never do that. When I want to experience something, I create it for myself.

I don't sit around and complain about how no one wants to travel, how no one wants to play pickleball. I go out there and I find people that want to travel or I go by myself. I remember one year wanting to go to Paris and I couldn't find anyone to go with me. Guess what I did? I booked a ticket and I went. Such an amazing trip. I love solo traveling. And if you feel like travel is fun and you're tired of waiting to have someone to travel with, go make that trip happen. Go enjoy your own company. Go check out Alessia at One Girl Travel. This is what she does. She supports women who want to solo travel and it will change your life. But don't wait for someone to create your fun. You be the fun. You know how they say be the change? Be the fun. And decide what is fun for you and create it for yourself.

And what you're going to discover is that other people are so inspired by you, they're going to want to join in on your party, but you're not going to depend on them in order to have fun. I don't sit around and wait for other people to be in a better mood either. If I'm around cranky people, guess what I do? I crank up the fun. But I didn't always do this. I used to be around cranky people and then I would become cranky and then I would be blaming them for why I was cranky. I would be blaming them as to why I wasn't having fun in my life. They weren't the reason why I wasn't having fun. I was the reason why I wasn't having fun. And when I really got that and I understood it, I never used other people as an excuse as to why I wasn't having fun. Never. And then I started having more fun than I could imagine. So again, if I find myself around cranky people, crank up the fun.

The other thing that I told the women in the membership, I'm like, "Listen, we are women who don't wait for things outside of us to change to have fun." Because I know that's what a lot of you all are doing. You're saying things like, "I'll have fun when some future date, some future goal is achieved." And so you keep delaying fun. But remember, fun is the path to success. If we're not having fun, what are we doing? A lot of you all think you can make yourself miserable to fun.

You're like, one day when I've lost the weight, one day when I have more money, one day when I have the man of my dreams, one day when... Then I will have fun.

And so you make yourself miserable and you make yourself not an energetic match to what you want. I always go to the future. I always imagine the future version of me and however she's showing up, I need to practice showing up as her now. And guess what she is always doing? She is always having a good time. So I need to have a good time now.

We are also women who make fun a priority. That's right. A priority. It's not something that we wait until later to do. It is something that is a priority in our everyday lives. And we make it a priority by not only being the fun and infusing fun into our daily lives. Believe it or not, you all, you can have fun while you're washing the dishes. You can have fun while you're cleaning the laundry. It's all an attitude. As I was saying earlier, my family laughs at me how much fun I have. They think I'm crazy. They think I'm wild and I am a little bit. But I am in the kitchen cleaning the dishes and dancing and singing and just being so grateful I have these nasty dishes from these amazing humans who just left them there. When I'm paying the bills, I'm having fun. I'm like, I'm so grateful that I have electricity. I'm so grateful that I get to pay taxes in this country. Believe it or not, I'm grateful for it.

And I used to not be this way. I used to complain. I used to delay fun for later. I used to associate certain things with fun and certain things with misery. But then I was like, what if it could all could have an element of fun? What if we don't have to be miserable doing these things that people have told us we should be miserable doing? Like paying bills, cleaning the house. I'm grateful for all of it. And if I get to choose and I do, would I rather be miserable complaining and bitching about doing something? Or would I rather have fun? Which is going to give me the better result? Having more fun. And you get to have more fun just by changing your thoughts about it. I love the quote by Randy Pouch where he says, "I'm going to keep having fun every day I have left."

You just have to decide whether you're a Tigger or an Eeyore. Which do you want to be? Which one will allow you to not only create better results but live a better life? I always say the best way to improve your life is to enjoy the life you have right now. Really enjoy it, have fun, maximize it. Stop waiting until one day when to have more fun. I just finished planning my entire 2023. Literally, the entire year I've planned. And guess what the first thing was to go on my calendar? Fun. But that's not fair to say because I literally have fun in almost everything that I do. I said almost. Sometimes my brain wants to resist having fun.

Sometimes it just is a grind. And I accept, okay, this is going to be a grind. I'm just going to get through it. But for the most part, I can say I laugh and have fun every single day of my life, every single day.

But when I was planning my 2023, I put my vacations, all of the fun things that I want to do on there first. And that's the opposite of how most people go about their lives. Most people wait to see where they can fit it in after they've put everything else on their calendar. And I believe in the Profit First model. Some of you may know of the book called Profit First. A lot of entrepreneurs are very familiar with the concept of you pay yourself first. And I like to see our time the same way. Instead of putting all these projects on your calendar, pay yourself first with your own time. How do you want to spend that leisure time, that fun time? Put that on your calendar first. Make it a priority. And then make everything else work around it. And what I can tell you is that everything that you put around that is going to work so much better because you are going to be energized. You are going to be working better. You are going to be living at a higher vibe, energy. And so everything benefits when you, the one person at the center of your world, at the center of your universe, is fulfilled and having fun. So we are women who make fun a priority.

And the last thing that I told them is that we are women who bring the fun. We know that the party lives within us. We know that no matter what room we decide to enter, we get to decide the energy in which we bring into that space. And we can bring a sense of fun and play and love and joy no matter how the people in that room are showing up. This is really good to know right before the holidays as you're going to be around the family and the in-laws and all the people that you may not want to be around, but you're choosing to be around them anyway. No, you get to dictate the energy that you bring into every single room. So why not you bring the fun? When they're cranky, we crank up the fun. The party lives within you, my friend, and it's time you join that celebration.

And so that is my gift to you this year. I want to give you the gift of fun. And what I can tell you is what I've planned for 2023 for this community is fun. I want to bring more fun into these conversations. I want to make personal development fun because I think it is. I think the ability to create yourself on purpose is such a fun idea. Now, it's hard. I'm saying it's not. Change is difficult. But even hard things can be fun when you change your mindset around them. And so what I can tell you is the fun that my family gets to experience all of the time, I want to bring more of that into this space. And so I am super excited about next year and I want us all to commit to making fun of priority in our lives and trusting that it is going to only make things better.

Have a beautiful holiday, my friends, and I cannot wait to see you in the next episode. Take care. Cheers.

Enjoy the Show? Don't miss another episode!Pick your favorite platform below:The Self-Image Manifesto

You’re Invited To Live An Extraordinary Life!

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tonya's diary

what i'm thinking about

Happy Holidays, Gorgeous!

What do you say we shake things up this year?

Out with the “shoulds”
Out with tolerating the same-old
Out with whatever no longer feels good to you

I’m suggesting a complete holiday overhaul - a holiday edit of the traditions, practices, habits, and thoughts that make the holidays less than enjoyable.

How?

First, join School of Self-Image. You don’t want to miss the month we have coming up.

Doors are open for a few days! Our December theme is Your Health Commitment - all about getting to the core of what it takes to live in your ideal body year-round.

(This is the ultimate antidote to yo-yo diets, weight cycling, body image challenges, and putting your health on the back burner.)

*Important Note: Join as an annual member or upgrade to an annual membership and get access to both The Wealthy Woman course and my live VIP session “How to Be the Wealthy Woman During Financial Hardship” on December 6!

JOIN SOSI TODAYStep two: Register for A Red Hot Holiday Party
Be sure to register for my free holiday party. It’s all about editing your holiday season while elevating your happiness & health this December. (Holiday attire encouraged!)

RSVP FOR RED HOT HOLIDAYYears ago, I edited my Christmas holiday season and deleted all the shoulds that often accompany this time of year - things that used to make me feel overwhelmed, frustrated, and anxious.

Christmas cards. Expensive gifts. Mandatory dinners. Certain parties. Homemade cookies. Plays. Outfits.
I asked myself, “What would a dreamy Christmas look like to me?”

I wrote a list - and on that list was travel.

Travel is my favorite gift to give to my family and myself.

So this year, guess what we’re doing?

I’m gifting everyone a trip to Aspen for the holidays. We’re going to ski on Christmas day, sip hot chocolate by the fire, and go out to dinner for our holiday meal.

Now it’s your turn. Imagine your most fabulous holiday.

What does it look like? How does it feel? Who’s present? And what needs to be left on the editing floor?

Let’s find out together this month. It’s your last chance to join School of Self Image in 2022.

In fact, you can go ahead and skip New Years’ Resolutions altogether too. Just join School of Self-Image today and consider your New Years’ Resolutions as good as done.

In the first 30 days of 2023, we’ll walk you through:

Selecting your “Word of the Year” - a word that will guide your vision for the entire year
Setting an Extraordinary Goal (which is what makes us extraordinary women!)
Using the Dream Atelier process and something new coming soon to achieve everything on your bucket list (This surprise will be revealed before 2023 - only to the members of School of Self-Image.)
Making new friends with women around the world
Giving every area of your life a makeover according to your values, your dreams, and your preferences!

Ready? Let’s make this holiday season incredibly bright.

JOIN SOSI TODAYxo

P.S. Welcome to this edition of The Edit - The Bejeweled Issue. Let’s dazzle ourselves this December. This issue will show you how.

The Thought Edit

A New Thought to Restyle Your Mind

Dress the Body You Have Today

In light of our December focus “Your Health Commitment”, this is one of the most important concepts I can share.

Want to dazzle yourself on the daily? Then dress the body you have today.

So often, we abandon ourselves when we don’t look or feel how we want to; when we don’t accomplish what we say we will; when we make a mistake; when we are imperfect.

We withhold love from ourselves, and we rob ourselves of living a full life NOW.

Sometimes, we avoid style altogether. We don’t invest in pieces that make us feel good, waiting until someday when we’ve achieved a certain health goal.

But here’s a counterintuitive truth:
Dressing the body you have now actually motivates you to keep recommitting to your health goals.

You feel more attractive. You feel more confident, and because of that, you make better choices.

So dress the body you have today. Ok? She deserves it, and so do you.

SOPHISTICATESIdeas for Elevating from Our Members

Splashing Out
with Annette Harrington

“To run a half marathon within a year may not be an EG for some but it is huge for me. I’ve been putting off buying running shoes until my run stretches get longer, and I have been wearing my walking shoes instead. As I’ve quickly discovered, this is a problem with potential injury.

Thanks to our Worthy Woman workshop, I realized my future self, a successful runner, would of course wear nothing but the correct running shoes.

So I splashed out and bought brand new, properly fitting running shoes today! Then, as today is a running day, I went for my run - a 2.9 km stretch of intervals.

My why for wanting to do this is huge. Number 1 is my health. I’m just so pleased that I joined SOSI and grateful for Tonya’s awesome wisdom and encouragement.”

A Taste of Style

Making the Everyday Extraordinary

Style Your Plate

Have you ever thought of eating a meal like it’s a treat for ALL of your senses?

Ever since I read “French Women Don’t Get Fat”, I’ve been styling my plate.

Why? Because food is a visual feast as much as it is a flavorful experience for your palate.

And believe it or not, making sure your plate looks visually appealing will help you increase the amount of satisfaction you get from eating your food, which makes you less likely to overeat.

Spend an extra minute making your plate look beautiful. You’ll love the difference it makes.

HAUTE HABITS

Habits for Creating the Impossible

Walk Every Day

I think walking should have another moment. Forget about weight loss. What about these other incredible benefits?

More energy
Heart health
Muscle tone
Stronger bones
Improved mood
Better memory
More sleep
Stronger immune system
Reduced stress I hope this podcast gives you grace this holiday season.

We get so focused on how we look, and that may just be our biggest obstacle. Health is one of the biggest gifts I’ve given myself.

In fact, here are the top 5 gifts I’ve given myself.

My Top 5 Gifts I’ve Given Myself

LISTEN TO THE PODCASTIn the Bag

Tools for REinvention

Dazzle Yourself in Sequins

No holiday would be complete without a little sparkle. Wouldn’t you say? Here’s a gorgeous holiday skirt from Anthropologie I’m loving right now.

GET THE SKIRTThe Toast

Your Invitation to Connect & Celebrate

Celebrating You This Holiday Season

Being intentional this holiday season may not sound sexy but it is sooo sexy.

This is a time for you to rest and recharge, connect and and enjoy.

Why make it a stressful, anxious, overwhelming time when, with a little intentionality, you can make it exactly how you want it to be?

Let’s make this holiday season all about celebrating YOU.

I can’t think of anything more fun, and I can’t think of anyone more worthy.

Your next level life awaits you, Gorgeous. And I am SO here for it.

P.S. Before I go, here are the most important things to do next:

No 1. Join School of Self-Image Today.
If you’re not a member of SOSI, give this to yourself. For a short time, you get to waive the $200 enrollment fee and start the holiday season with your 2023 commitment locked in. Let’s break the pattern of waiting until January. Shall we? At less than $100 per month, with over 50+ masterclasses, including my newest (and possibly my favorite!) on Your Health Commitment, you’ll end this holiday season hotter, happier, and healthier than when it started. And by the end of 2023? You won’t even recognize your life!

JOIN SOSI TODAYNo 2. Sign up for my Red Hot Holiday Party.
You’ll be all smiles when you see what my team and I have prepared for you. I’ll be sharing how I plan to elevate my health this December, how I plan my holiday calendar, and how I’m editing my holiday season again for 2022. Come kickoff December with me!

RSVP FOR RED HOT HOLIDAYNo 3. Listen to this week’s podcast
My Top 5 Gifts I’ve Given Myself. Let’s put ourselves on the top of our own list this year.

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST// TheEDIT

A weekly digital magazine by the School of Self-Image

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Listen to the Full Episode:You only live once!

Living in the now could be easy for some, but for others is not. So, let me ask you a question ~ When was the last time you try something new? There can be a lot of different ways to answer this. One thing that stands out is if you’ll answer it based on what you think or what you feel.

I know, sometimes life could be good or not-so-good. This can either drive you to stop or keep moving forward. But this can also affect how you are living today. Life is simply life itself for you, for us to live.

As 2022 is nearly bidding goodbye, I’d like to share some of my favorite firsts of the year. I thought of sharing this topic because it might help you get inspired to do further beyond your own limits (or probably what your mind thinks so.)

So, let me challenge you to do more things for the first time in 2023. If you’re up for this challenge, time to listen to today’s episode! And don’t forget to connect with me on Instagram so we can talk more about this!

What You Will Discover with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: 1:38 - How life is built with your first * 3:27 - Why you should NOT stop having first * 5:10 - Understanding the fear of the unknown * 7:22 - Is it normal to be scared the first time? * 9:44 - Never good as the first time * 13:02 - How death will be your last first * 13:29 - 2023 challenge to have more first * 19:19 - How the universe works * 31:37 - Defining the future with first * 35:26 - The power of first QuotesConnect with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: FREE Download: Self-Image Manifesto* * Join *The School of Self-Image * Follow me on Instagram * Find me on Facebook * Subscribe on Youtube * Watch me on TikTok DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:As we approach a new year, I want you to think about trying new things. I want you to think about intentionally creating new first. It reminds me of a quote by Neil Gaiman where he says, "I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes, because if you're making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're doing something." In this episode I'm going to talk about the importance of having first, and I'm sharing some of my favorite first of 2022. So let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello my gorgeous friends. How's it going? How are you feeling? What are you excited about? What are you afraid of? Some deep questions. And they are such good questions. We need to check in with ourselves, my friends, and see how we're doing. Most of the time when I'm asked these kinds of questions, I'm feeling a mixture of excitement and elation, and also terrified. And I realize why that is, and it's what today's episode is all about. My life is filled with a lot of first, the first time doing something. And first are magical and they are also extremely scary. But without them, your life becomes mundane. You feel like you're stuck in a rut. And one of the best ways to get out of a rut, my friends, is to commit to having more first in your life.

We remember our first. First are magical and sometimes they're not so great. If you think about your first day of school, your first kiss, maybe you look back at that and realize, "My God, that was awkward, trying to figure out how to kiss someone." Your first car, your first job, your first born, your first heartbreak, your first trip overseas, your first house. First are what make life so incredible and amazing. And it's what grows our character, it's how we learn about the world, it's how we learn about ourselves. And yet, so many people stop having first. In fact, first are often attached to the first half of life. Think about it, when you're a kid, everything is new, everything's exciting. You're so looking forward to experiencing all of these first. And then, at some point, we stop having them, or we don't have as many. And it's not because first aren't available. Every day, there is a countless number of first that are available to each of us. And yet, so many people stop having them as they get older.

I decided that I want to continue to have first until the day I die, which, that'll be a first too. I love having first, because they grow me, they are exciting, they expose me to more of the world, they change my perspective. First are powerful. They're also associated with youth. And that's another reason why I plan to keep having them. First keep you young. So why don't we have them? Why do we stop having first? And the main reason is because we get into ruts of thinking and therefore doing. Think about it. When you're a kid, you haven't created those deep neural pathways yet, and so you are thinking new and exciting thoughts. You're imagining how your future can be. You're using your imagination to think in creative and fun ways.

And then, life happens. And we start to have impressions upon our brains that create these deep neural pathways, which then cause us to continue to think the same thoughts over and over and over again. And therefore we're doing the same things over and over again. And therefore we're experiencing the same things over and over again. This causes us to get very comfortable with what is familiar and we are afraid of the unfamiliar. We're afraid of the unknown. But a first requires that you step into the unknown. Any type of first is going to be a little uncomfortable, only because you've never done it before. But when you're afraid of failing, when you're afraid of maybe looking stupid, when you're afraid of humiliation, all which is a potential possibility with a first, and you let that fear run your life, what ends up happening is you end up living in a very mundane and ordinary existence. So if you want to live an extraordinary life, you must be willing to have a lot of first.

So let's talk about first and then I'm going to share some of the first that I've had this year, because as I told you, I am committing to intentionally seeking out more first in my life, 'cause I want to stay young, and I want to learn and grow.

And I know, and I've said this many times on the podcast, but everything that I want and don't yet have is in the unfamiliar, and that is going to require that I do things, and think things, and be things for the very first time. So when it comes to first, the first thing you have to know is that everything at one point was a first. Everything. Your first breath, your first steps, your first day at school. And you are a collection of your first. And so if you want to change, if you want to elevate your self-image, you are going to have to add new things into your, let's just say, your life bucket, that informs you to think in new ways.

Another thing about first is that the first time is often awkward, tough, scary. And that is okay. That's not a reason not to have first, it's a reason to do it. I think about Fonz. He went skiing for the first time a couple years ago and it was so awkward. It was not easy for him. And I think about the first time I went skiing, it was the same. It was so awkward. I didn't know what I was doing. It was frustrating. I was falling down a lot, but I kept practicing it, until now, I think I'm a pretty decent skier. But that first time usually isn't so smooth. I think about my very first coaching call. I wish that I had a recording to play to you all. I think we forget that the first time for any of us is a little awkward, if not flat-out terrible.

I often talk with new coaches and they think that they're special when it comes to their coaching ability and feeling as if they're not a good enough coach. And what I tell them is that the first time you do anything, it's going to be different. Now, sometimes the first is awesome and incredible, and you don't have to experience the awkwardness, but for the most part I have found that most first aren't that way. Think about the person that goes to med school and decides to specialize in cardiothoracic surgery. The first time he or she operates on someone else, it's going to be awkward, which is why they have attendants around them to make sure they're doing it okay, they're not killing someone. But in time, with practice and with experience and years of doing it, they may rise to the top of their field. But they had to be willing to do it for the very first time.

Now some first you're going to love and they're going to become a part of your life. Other first you're going to do and decide you're never going to do that again. For example, this year I accidentally went to a rave. And it did feel like an accidental attendance, because I wanted to go to a concert at Red Rocks, which I'd never done before, a first. And I wanted to go hear a DJ that I've listened to for years.

And so we got there and I realized a little of the behavior is probably because they're in an altered state, and everybody was wearing thongs, and crazy costumes, and it was quite a scene. And listen, I am so happy I went. And I never need to do that ever again. It was a first that I'm glad I had that experience and again, I never want to do it again.

But another first that I had this year is I went to my first NBA game, and that I want to do forever and ever, amen. I had so much fun and now I can't get enough. I'm like, "I want to go to all the NBA games." They're so much fun to watch in person. But the thing is you have to be willing to do things and be disappointed, to not like it, in order to discover the things that you do like to do, and enjoy, and want to add to your life.

I was coaching a woman, probably a couple years ago, and I'll never forget the conversation because she was like, "I'm so afraid of being disappointed, I just don't do anything." And I said to her, I'm like, "You have to be willing to be disappointed to be delighted." And it's so true. Think about it. If I was so afraid of being disappointed because I may not like an experience, then I would not have gone to the rave, the accidental rave that I went to, but I equally would not have gone to an NBA game. I would just be sitting at home being afraid to be disappointed and I would be missing out on the best things in life. I would be missing out on experiencing first. So you have to be willing to be disappointed, to be delighted.

The other thing that I've noticed about first is that they are often the gateway to other first. So I think about my first time in Paris, it then became the first time that I went to a French winery, and then that led me to the first time that I experienced a Sauterne. And it's just like they keep adding to each other. It's like, you walk through this doorway of a first and then there's another first, and another first. And you could have never experienced them without that first one. It was the entry point to experience so many other things. And then finally, what I want us all to think about, and I said this earlier, but the end of your life, death is the final first. And so between now and then, why not accumulate a lot of first? Which to me is accumulating a lot of life experience.

I talked about in last week's podcast about slipstreams. About how will you measure your life? Is it going to be in years lived, or in the life experience? And if you want it to be in the life experience, which I think is the ultimate way of measuring your life, then it's going to require that you are willing to experience a lot of first. So let me ask you, when was the last time that you had a first? And if you're having a hard time coming up with that answer, or you realize that you aren't having that many, what if you committed to having more first in 2023? I know I'm going to do that. In fact, I'm proud of the first that I've had this year.

Before recording this, I was looking through my camera roll, really taking in my 2022, and looking for the first that I've had this year. And I mentioned a couple. I went to a rave, I also went to an NBA game.

I also bought land, and next year I'll be building a house. Those are two firsts for me and I'm a little nervous. In fact, today right before I started recording this, I had a meeting with my builder, and architect, and the whole team that's helping me with the house, and I could feel myself going into that, "Oh my goodness, this is a little scary." And of course it is, because it's the first time I've done it. And in many ways I've had so much freedom by not owning a home. I've been able to pick up and go, and not really think about having a house. But I'm also excited about doing this for the first time and creating a physical space that I will make so many memories in, and family will come to, and friends, that I call my own. So this year, my first was buying the land, and next year, fingers crossed, I will complete a house. That's the plan.

The other thing that I did for the first time this year was host a very large event. In fact, I hosted two, the first one was in South Beach back in February, it was called SOSI Beach Live. And going into that, I didn't know if I was going to enjoy it. It's a lot of work. And I was doing it as an experiment to see, "Do I really like this?" And the only way to find out if you like something is to do it, to experience it, to try it for the first time. A lot of you all are sitting at home trying to figure that out. And because you don't have the experience, you don't yet know if you're going to like it or not.

And I do believe, looking back at my life, one of the reasons why I've been able to create the results I've created is that I've been willing to try things knowing, "I may not like this." And that's okay, but the only way I'm going to know is if I do it. And so I hosted my first big event in February and I loved it so much. At that event, I announced I was going to be doing another one in November, which just passed. We did that one in Scottsdale. It was called SOSI Desert Live. And at the SOSI Beach Live, the next one almost sold out, because everybody was having so much fun.

And yet it was a lot of work, and so I told my team, I'm like, "Listen, I don't know if I'm going to do another event after SOSI Desert." Because it is. It takes a lot of time to do an event really well. And while I was at the event, my team planned for it, I was like, "You know what? I actually want to do it again." And so we're already planning on the next SOSI event. And I announced it at SOSI Desert, and just like SOSI Beach, we had so many women say, "I'm in, I want to come back." And so I'm so excited. However, I had to be willing to do it for the first time in order to gauge whether it was something that I wanted to add to my life and to my business.

Another first that I had this year is that I hired a travel concierge. I know, it sounds so fancy right? And it is. Up until this year I had always planned my own travel. Part of this is because I am a little bit of a control freak. I love being all up in the business of my travel. But the other part was I just didn't know that there were people out there who could plan something as good as I think I can plan it. And you all know, who have planned experiences, and trips, and vacations, it takes a lot of thought to do it well. And this was just a year where I wanted to take my brain and put it on other things. And I still wanted to have incredible experiences.

So I hired Cassandra from Premier Wellness Travel, who basically plans everything. She thinks through every single detail, from the moment I'm driving to the airport, even beyond that, before that, making sure I'm prepared to have everything that I need, every little detail. And I cannot tell you how that up-leveled not only my self-image, but also my travel experience. To be able to have someone to make all of those decisions, to get you, to understand what you like, to understand your budget, and then put everything in place to support all of that. It was definitely a first that I want to continue having. Now because of that, I had another first, and that is I went to Portofino, Italy. I'd never been to Portofino before. I'd been to other parts of Italy but never Portofino.

So I want to share with you how the universe works. So we're sitting at this restaurant, along the water in Portofino, and we start talking to the owner of that restaurant. And he asked us where we're from and we're like, "We live in Denver." And he was like, "Oh, my cousin owns a restaurant in Denver." And I was like, "Oh, that's cool." And I asked him, "Where is the restaurant?" And he told me the address. And guess what? It is two blocks from where I live. So of course we had to go to this restaurant when we came back. And it was so much fun, us telling him how we'd met his cousin. And of course he treated us like royalty. It was so much fun. And it all came from a first. As I said earlier, first tend to be gateways to other first and other amazing experiences.

Another first that I had was actually in Portofino and it was a first that I would prefer not to ever have again, because as I said, not all first are great, and some first you never intended to have. And that is the case with this first. So basically what happened is we go to Portofino and my travel concierge arranged for us to go to this private beach club one day, because I wanted to go and enjoy the water. And it was the most beautiful beach club. It was by Dior, and so it was all decked out in Dior design. And as we're walking up, this lovely woman told us, she was like, "Hey listen, I know the water looks beautiful today, but I just want to warn you that there are jellyfish everywhere." And I was like, "Okay, cool."

And so we're at the beach club, we're lying in the sun and I'm so hot, and I look out, and it is such a gorgeous picturesque day. The water is so clear and there are people swimming everywhere.

And so I look to Fonz and I'm like, "Let's go get in the water." And you have to understand Fonz is a little afraid of the water. And he loves to tell this story. He finds it hilarious, because his story, his version, is that I tried to coach him into going into the water. I told him, apparently, according to his version, I don't remember this, but he said I told him "that he should just change his thoughts and come enjoy the water with me." And of course he was like, "No, I'm not getting in the water." So I tell him, I'm like, "Okay, I'm going to go get in the water." And he's standing on the dock and I ask him, I'm like, "Please look out for jellyfish." Because we were warned that they're everywhere. So I get in the water, I'm swimming around, I'm having such a moment you all, I'm in the water thinking about how I can't believe that I'm here. I mean, come on. I grew up not traveling to Italy, and definitely not being at the Dior private beach club in Portofino.

And so I'm just enjoying it, just taking it all in, I'm so present. When all of a sudden the most painful sensation happens to my left arm. And Fonz's version is that I literally walked on water getting out of the ocean. I got stung by this jellyfish. And so I come out of the water and the attendants are surrounding me. And Fonz is trying not to laugh. He was very compassionate. He later was like, "I told you so." But in the moment he was trying to take care of me. To this day I have this mark on my arm. You literally can see a jellyfish mark on my arm. This jellyfish bite was no joke. It was a first. And I hope I never have that experience again.

But I was thinking about it. Do I regret it? Absolutely not. Because that's the thing, as I was saying before, you have to be willing to be bitten, by life, to enjoy the delights of life. And I still think about how delightful it was to be in that water, enjoying the Portofino sunshine, and it just so happens that I got bitten by a jellyfish, very first time, and I hope I never ever experienced that again.

Another first that I had was speaking on a large stage, speaking in front of over a thousand people. Now, in my business I often speak to thousands of people on Zoom, online, but being on stage in front of over a thousand people is a very different experience. And with most first that are large in nature, meaning they're so outside of what you're accustomed to doing, it's going to be really uncomfortable. So for example, going to Portofino was a beautiful experience.

It was a first, I loved it, but because I've traveled overseas now, it wasn't something that was uncomfortable, except for the jellyfish bite, that literally was uncomfortable. But it was still a first that grew me, and changed my perspective, and helped me to get clarity on what I enjoy and what I don't. However, speaking on a stage in front of thousands of people is a very different experience when you're not used to it.

And so I remember I was so nervous. I didn't sleep the night before, I was anxious, I was afraid, I was all of the things. And I did it anyway. And then once I was done, I was like, "Oh, I could get used to this. This was not as hard as I thought it was." In fact, I actually enjoyed it. Now some people would be in that situation and they would do it, and they would finish their talk, and they'd be like, "Never again." But they wouldn't know that until they experienced it. And for me, I was like, "Oh, this was actually really fun." I loved speaking on that stage. I loved the energy of the room. I loved reading the energy and figuring out how to get the crowd involved, and telling stories, and hopefully having an impact on people's lives. I really, really enjoyed it.

And as I was saying, first are something that you either begin to incorporate into your life, or you decide never again. And first are also opportunities that can grow. And so since that talk, I've been asked to speak on other large stages, which is so much fun, but I had to be willing to do it for the first time. Another fun first that I had this year is I went to my very first prom. That's right. My very first prom in my forties. Now some of you may not know this, but I dropped out of high school. I wanted to grow up really fast. I can see now, looking back, I was trying to escape the religion that I grew up in. And the answer was to grow fast, hurry up, go to college, get a job, get married, have a kid. That was how I thought I was going to get out of it.

So what I ended up doing is dropping out of high school, so that I could actually get my high school diploma faster. So I dropped out, and because I was ahead, I went straight to college, finished my high school diploma, and at the same time I was taking college classes. So I was actually the youngest person at the time, I don't know if that's still the case, but to graduate from nursing school at the college I went to. And then I got married at 18. And so I just bypassed the whole prom and graduation, didn't have any of that. And I always wondered what it was like to go to a prom. And so when there was an adult prom that was announced here in Denver, I was like, "I want to go." And it was the sweetest thing, because Fonz treated it like a prom. He got me flowers and he picked me up, and we went to dinner beforehand, and we had prom pictures. It was so much fun.

And it just proved that you're never too old for a first, even when it's something like a prom. You can create the experiences that you deeply, deeply crave. Another thing that I thought I craved when I was a young adult was being a model. I think a lot of girls might do this. We see models in the magazines and we think, "Wow, they have the best job ever. They get to travel and they probably get free clothes, and they get to go out to all the best restaurants." And I thought it was probably the most glamorous job ever. And so when I grew up and I started to have friends who were models, turns out, not the case. It is a very difficult job in many, many ways. And now I realize I would never want to be a model.

However, I got to make that childhood dream come true this year. I had another first. I was able to be a part of a real photo shoot. So for my best friend Brooke's 50th birthday, she had David Yarrow, who is a world famous photographer, do a photo shoot with her and her closest friends. And I was fortunate to be a part of that group. And it was a legit photo shoot. It was well produced. We had makeup artists, and hairstylists, and a whole crew, to make sure that he captured those few perfect shots. And that was a first for me. Now, I've had photo shoots before, but this level of production, this level of thought, and care, and planning, I'd never experienced before. And I rather enjoyed it. And it's probably because I was with my favorite people in the most beautiful locations here in Colorado, and with David Yarrow, his work is just mind blowing. He's so talented.

But I also enjoyed it because I'm at a point in my life where I just don't care as much. There was a time when I would be in front of a camera and just be so awkward, because I would be judgmental, and I would try to be perfect, and I'd be so worried about how does it look and what do people think? And I'm just not in that space anymore. And so when you're not in that space, you end up actually taking much better pictures. You're relaxed and you're having fun, and you're calm, and all of that energy I feel like is translated in the photographs.

And so when the photos came back, I was like, "Oh wow, we all are just so beautiful in our own unique way." Everybody in that photograph, you could see... I don't know how to explain it other than I feel like you can see that we've done the work on ourselves. We are just enjoying being ourselves and also enjoying celebrating each other's beauty. It was one of my favorite days of this year, and it was a first, and it's a first I think I'd love to have again. I don't know what that's going to look like, but I was like, "Maybe it's not too old to be a model. That could be fun." Especially when you have the wisdom that we have as we get older. It's so fun.

I've had a lot of first this year, but the last one that I'm going to talk about I'm so excited about. I actually see a huge future because of this first. And I'm just warning y'all, I could go pro. Are you wondering what I'm talking about? Pickleball. This year I played pickleball for the very first time and I am obsessed. And when I tell y'all I'm obsessed, like legit obsessed. My friend Brooke was like, "You are an addict." We played one day for six hours and I didn't want to stop. I'm like, "Let's go, let's go."

And funny story, the first time I played, it was this year, and it was Brooke and one of her friends, and me and Fonz. And we like to play for money. We get very competitive. And so there was some money on the line and none of us had really... Brooke had played, but none of the rest of us had played. And I'm very competitive, especially when it comes to games, very competitive. And I didn't realize that in pickleball that you shouldn't dive for the ball. So the ball comes over the net, and I am running, and I literally dive. And when I do, my finger somehow sticks out and my finger is basically dislocated. It is hanging off my pinky. And I jump up and I'm sort of in shock, because I see my finger's not right. And I just turned my head and I looked at Fonz, I'm like, "Pull it back into place." And so he pops it back into place, it's swelling up, it's black and blue. And I'm like, "Let's go." I didn't want to stop playing. So we finished the game and we won.

This is how much I love pickleball. And now I'm like, "I want a pickleball birthday. I want a pickleball wedding. I want a pickleball Christmas."" Like all the holidays I want to play pickleball. And it's because I experienced it for the first time. Now, think about this, and this is what happens to a lot of people. You would hear someone say, "Hey, let's go play pickleball." And your brain would immediately go to, "No, I've never done it before. I'm not going to be good at it." And you would possibly miss out on the best thing ever. And now I will say, I'm going to brag on myself, I'm really good at pickleball, and I was the first time I played. And that's only because I've played tennis in the past. However, I remember when I first started playing tennis when I was an adult, I was in my twenties, I was terrible at it when I first started terrible. But I took lessons, and I kept showing up, and I kept practicing until I got good.

Now, I'm not the best pickleball player. Turns out there are some really good players. Since I've fallen in love with pickleball, it shows up on my algorithm all of the time now. And so I get to see people playing. I'm like, "Oh." I thought I was good. I'm actually not that good. But amongst my people, I'm not bad. But getting back to the topic of this podcast, it's because I was willing to be bad at it that I realized I was good at it. It's because I was willing to try something and potentially not like it that I discovered something that I am obsessed with. You all, you have to have first in your life.

And I could keep going on and on about other first that I've had this year, but I hope you can see the power of first. And not every first is going to be amazing. You're going to try things and you're going to hate it.

But don't ever use that as a reason not to have more first. Just understand that that's part of the process. But by having more first, you're going to stumble upon things that you love, things that you will want to incorporate more of into your life, things that will grow you, new opportunities, other new first, other new experiences. All because you were willing to try something for the first time. And so I want you just to think about this year and ask yourself, did you have any first?

And if so, take a moment to just take that in, and look at how it impacted you. What did you discover? What did you learn from having that first? And do you like how many first you had? Do you feel like you are fulfilled? For me, I look back and I've had a lot of first this year and I still feel like there's so many other first I could have had.

And so going into 2023, I want this to be a big focus, a big intention for me. I want to focus on having more first and creating them deliberately. And knowing by doing that I'm going to stumble probably upon more first that I didn't even know I was going to have, but I will have those because I was intentional about having the others. So let's create some first in 2023, are you in? I would love to hear your thoughts. So come find me on Instagram @tonyaleigh and share with me your first that you've had from this year, and other firsts that you're excited about creating in 2023. Have a beautiful week everyone, and I will see you in next week's episode. Cheers.

Hey, have you grabbed your free copy of the School of Self-Image Manifesto? If not, what in the world? Head over to schoolofselfimage.com/manifesto and get a copy that teaches you how to think, and show up in the areas of mindset, style, and surroundings, so that you can transform your self-image.

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You’re Invited To Live An Extraordinary Life!

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tonya's diary

what i'm thinking about

Happy Thanksgiving - from me and my family to you and yours.

(And if you’re not in the U.S. or don’t celebrate this particular holiday, just know how grateful I am for you, too.)

Welcome to The Grateful Issue of The Edit.
As you’re reading this, I’m in Scottsdale celebrating Thanksgiving with my family and dearest friends.

As cliché as it sounds, my heart is overflowing with gratitude for life.

Often, we can get into a habit of wanting MORE -

more money
more things
more experiences
more clients

more, more, MORE…

And we forget to appreciate everything and everyone we already have.

For example, as excited as I am to grow School of Self-Image and expand our membership, I never want to take for granted the amazing members that I have right now.

So, this is for all my ladies inside School of Self-Image:
I appreciate you all deeply.

Almost every day, I peek into our private group and read through your challenges and celebrations.

Every day, I think about how I can serve you all better.

Every day, I hold the vision for you to step into your most extraordinary life — all while knowing that who you are right now, in this moment, is ENOUGH.

My role as your coach is to help you release whatever blocks you from seeing yourself as anything less than extraordinary.

Thank you for trusting me to guide you on this journey. It’s an honor to witness your becoming, as many of you have witnessed my own.

I cannot wait for what 2023 holds for us.

So grateful for you,

P.S. Since the holidays sneak up on us so quickly, I couldn’t wait to tell you about my Red Hot Holiday Party coming up on Dec 4, 2022.

RSVP HEREI wanted to make this the very first holiday party on your schedule - because this one is special –

At this party, we’ll be reimagining the holiday season and making it your happiest, HEALTHIEST holiday ever.

Two things inspired this:

Many of us use the holiday season to throw our health out the window. This puts you behind the 8-ball come January. Instead, why can’t we be women who can have it all? Why can’t we have plenty of fun during the holidays AND come out even healthier than we started? This holiday party will show you how.
The holidays are fraught with opportunities to stress yourself out and put yourself last. What if this year were different? What if this year you prioritized your happiness? Let’s decide it’s possible and create it together.

Don’t miss this special Red Hot Holiday Party. It’s going to be SO MUCH FUN – and inspire you to have an even happier, healthier holiday season.

RSVP HEREThe Thought Edit

A New Thought to Restyle Your Mind

Give Yourself Some Grace & Want What You Have

I find that during this season of giving thanks, we’re taught to just “be grateful”...

But what about when our crazy brains are not grateful?

Sometimes, this creates layers of guilt and resistance which only makes things worse. In this week’s podcast episode, I’m sharing the power of:

Wanting What You Have

LISTEN TO THE PODCASTI hope this podcast gives you grace this holiday season.

SOPHISTICATESIdeas for Elevating from Our Members

Honoring My Brother
with Holly Ecimovic

“Hi SOSI friends! I’m proud to say I used the scheduling methods Tonya suggests, as well as applying concepts from the Dream Atelier, to bring to fruition a goal I’ve recently had - publish another book and sell it - to honor my younger brother who died in 2016.

I faced a LOT of resistance when showing up for each tiny step in the process, and honestly, I had to face a LOT of mess from my brain: ‘Nobody cares about your book. This might be a waste of time. Writing this book is making me more sad and missing my brother. Why am I doing this to myself? This is not related to your full-time job.’

Well, I managed my brain and pushed through! I’m not going to lie, a lot of tears and bad feelings came up [but] I pushed through the tears of resistance and I hit my goal!

The moral of the story is…never give up!! And push through, despite what might be painful. Think of what’s on the other side of the pain. Remind yourself that adversity and resistance are ALL part of it when you accomplish a goal!”

A Taste of Style

Making the Everyday Extraordinary

Give It Away with Gratitude

Y’all know I love me some Marie Kondo, the queen of tidying, so I wanted to share one of her teachings with you today.

I call it “giving things away with gratitude.”

Sometimes, we might think “If I feel grateful for something, that means I need to hold onto it.”

Or conversely, “If I move on from something, it means I’m not grateful.”

Marie shows us this isn’t true. In her book The Lifechanging Magic of Tidying Up, Marie shares a step in the tidying process called “Discarding” where you give each item that you no longer want to keep a “proper send-off”, offering gratitude to that item for what it brought to your life and then, saying goodbye to it.

Marie says this step helps you “face your past and create your future.” Isn’t that beautiful?

This philosophy has offered me a lot of freedom, as I evolve my self-image and let go of things and people along the way who can’t continue with me on the journey. If it’s time for you to do some letting go too, give it all away with gratitude.

HAUTE HABITS

Habits for Creating the Impossible

Give Your Clothing to a Local Chapter of Dress for Success

There is power in women helping women. Personally, I love the organization Dress for Success. Here’s a snippet about them from their website:

Dress for Success is a global not-for-profit organization that empowers women to achieve economic independence by providing a network of support, professional attire and the development tools to help women thrive in work and in life.

Since starting operations in 1997, Dress for Success has expanded to 143 cities in 23 countries and has helped more than 1.3 million women work towards self-sufficiency.

If you have professional women’s clothing that you plan to discard but that is still in good condition, consider donating them to a local affiliate chapter in your area.

Just go to their website and enter your location in the top left corner under “Find Your Local Affiliate”.

DONATE TO DFSIn the Bag

Tools for REinvention

Be an Extraordinary Hostess

The holidays are a great time to test your dinner party hostessing skills. It’s a time to transcend the mundane and craft an experience that leaves your guests feeling pampered and appreciated.

But there are many ways of reducing the workload and making the event about connection, rather than your ability to outdo Martha Stewart.

Consider these categories and choose one or two to focus on. Then, make the rest as easy as possible.

Food
Ambiance
People
Conversations
Activities

For example, if you choose to focus on activities, plan an incredible game night for your friends and keep food simple, like ordering takeout or making a potluck. If you choose to focus on the food category instead, have your best friend invite the guest list.

*Special note for my SOSI ladies: There’s a helpful masterclass inside School of Self-Image called “How to Be an Extraordinary Hostess”. Review that for a step-by-step walkthrough on making your next event magical.

WATCH THE MASTERCLASSThe Toast

Your Invitation to Connect & Celebrate

Be on Time

Did you know that I’m a time snob, ~Contact.FirstName~? It’s true. Life is so precious, and as I get older, I realize more and more that time is something that should never be wasted. My advice? Be on time. It’s classy and respectful. Show up for your commitments, especially the ones you make with yourself.

And don’t forget to join me for the first holiday party on your calendar this season!

Let’s end this holiday season hotter and healthier than we started.

RSVP TO RED HOT HOLIDAY// TheEDIT

A weekly digital magazine by the School of Self-Image

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Listen to the Full Episode:How do you like spending your time alone

Today, I’ll be sharing the key takeaways from the book of Benjamin Hardy, ‘Slipstream Time Hacking.’ It is a self-improvement book that revolves around time, life, mindset, and decisions. Imagine yourself taking control of your life where time is the number one currency and reasons why you should take action.

Time = Money. For Ben, time is the new money. In the book, you will realize the value of time in a very realistic way. Every page has that effect on your life ~ what you do, what you think, and what you know.

So, here I am challenging you to live the life you always wanted to live right now! But before that, listen to this week’s episode to learn ways how to make it possible.

What You Will Discover with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: 0:37 - 2022 Thanksgiving * 2:11 - The concept of slipstream * 6:32 - Takeaway #1: Measuring life as distance traveled rather than time elapsed * 10:26 - Takeaway #2: A well-lived life is nothing more than a collection of well-lived days * 15:24 - Decision making: speed VS magnitude * 16:34 - Takeaway #3: “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”- Parkinson's law * 18:44 - The story of Tim and Ben * 21:40 - Takeaway #4: Change doesn't have to take a long time, it happens the instant we decide * 25:49 - Takeaway #5: Time is our only currency * 30:19 - Takeaway #6: Those who become the greatest and go the farthest are highly selective about what they take on * 31:22 Takeaway #7: Most of us engage in far too many priorities * 32:20 - Takeaway #8: Despite turbulence and other conditions, keeping the plane off course * 34:20: Takeaway #9: True commitment can only occur when turning back is no longer an option * 36:15 - Takeaway #10: When you commit to something a hundred percent, all of your future choices are already made no matter how attractive the circumstances * 36:52 - Takeaway #11: Time is sacred in the first few hours of your day. * 37:49 - Takeaway #12: Leveraging other people's time, skills and money are essential for getting where you want to go faster. * 39:05 - Takeaway #13: We all have invisible doors and the direct proximity that will transport us decades into our best futures. * 40:55 - Takeaway #14: You're bound to fumble along the way. * 42:06 Takeaway #15: When the end of life comes, we leave with nothing but our relationships. QuotesConnect with Self-Image Coach Tonya Leigh: Get a copy of the book: Takeaways from Slipstream Time Hacking by Benjamin Hardy * Join The School of Self-Image * FREE Download: Self-Image Manifesto* * Follow me on *Instagram * Find me on Facebook * Subscribe on Youtube * Watch me on TikTok DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTEpisode Transcript:Jean-Jacques Rousseau said, "The man who has lived the most is not he who has counted the most years, but he who has most felt life." In this episode, I'm sharing my takeaways from Benjamin Hardy's book, Slipstream Time Hacking. Let's dive in.

Welcome to The School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello, gorgeous friends. Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. I've had such a fun week, I just have to share it with you. I went to my bestie Brook's house for Thanksgiving. It was her family and my family and friends. It was a Friendsgiving. The thing that we like to do when we all get together is play games and typically it's card games or board games, but this time it was pickleball. How many of you all have played pickle ball before?

It is so much fun. I cannot play enough. My friend Brooke was like, "You're like an addict." I get out there, I'm like, "Let's play one more game, one more game." One day we played like six hours. That's how much pickle ball we played. And now I feel like my hips are confused. They're so sore, they're like, "What just happened?" But pickleball will be a regular part of my life moving forward. I wish I could put a pickleball court at my new house, but the lot's not big enough unless I put it in the front yard. Can you imagine that? A pickleball court in your front yard. I don't know that my neighbors would appreciate that, but it would be fun.

But can you all believe it's already December? Where has the time gone? In some ways, it feels like this year's gone by so fast, but in some ways it feels so slow.

I was talking to my friend the other day about something that happened two years ago and we were like, "Oh my goodness, that feels like a lifetime ago. Feels like forever" and yet it was just two years ago. Time's a really interesting thing, isn't it? That's why I want to talk about a concept called slipstreaming. I was introduced to this concept by Benjamin Hardy. Some of you may know of him. He wrote the book, Willpower Doesn't Work and Be Your Future Self Now. And I was in a mastermind with him years ago and he gave me a copy of his very first book and it's called Slipstream Time Hacking, How To Cheat Time, Live More And Enhance Happiness. And that book really spoke to me. In fact, I've reread it probably two times since he gave me that copy. And I reference the term a lot, especially amongst my friends.

Just this past week when I was with my friends at Brooke's house, we were sitting around the table and we were talking about how we all have had an impact on each other. And in many ways, Brooke has been my slipstream. She has allowed me by being in her velocity, I've been able to go further much quicker. And in some areas of life I've been her slipstream. I've been able to take her further much quicker. And that's the beauty of being around amazing and powerful people. We can get into their slipstream and they can carry us further faster than we could ever do it on our own. And if you talk to successful people, they will all tell you they really think about it. They had a slipstream, they had someone, it could have been a book, it could have been a podcast, it could have been a real life person, it could be an opportunity that came up because they were at the right place at the right time, that because they were there, it took them so much further than they could have ever done it on their own.

The best way to think about a slipstream is to think about cycling. If you've ever watched the Tour de France, you can see evidence of a slipstream. I remember watching Lance Armstrong at Tour de France and how I was always confused by his approach. I wasn't used to cycling at the time, and he would be behind a group for a large portion of the race. He would conserve his own energy and at the very end he would break loose and just take off. By being in their slipstream, he was able to go faster and ultimately win the race. A slipstream is defined as the flow of air directly behind a fast moving object such as a car, plane, boat, bicycle. And it can also be the flow behind a person. And that's the context that I'm using in today's episode.

I think about my membership, for example, I am the slipstream for so many of my members because I'm teaching things that took me years to learn and I'm giving it to them in a much more concise, digestible, and easy way.

They're able to go so much further, so much faster than I was able to. But I've also had my own slipstreams that because of these people I was able to go so much faster than I could have ever done on my own. That's the beauty of this work is that we can take advantage of slipstreams when they appear and we can also be a slipstream for others. I thought it would be fun for this episode for me to talk about some of the main takeaways that I had from Ben Hardy's book, Slipstream. And this is a first, I don't think I've ever done a book review, a book summary, a book takeaway in the history of this podcast. If you like this, let me know.

Okay, so let's talk about some of the main takeaways that I had from Slipstream Time Hacking by Ben Hardy. The book opens up with a really great question, how will you measure your life? If you think of how most people measure their lives, it's in years, it's in time. But one of the main lessons and principles of slipstream is that we should measure our life as distance traveled, rather than time elapsed. Ben asked the question, how would each day look if rather than passing through 24 hours we measured how far we moved that day? 24 hours doesn't mean anything. If we measured time as distance on our death beds, we could say it took me 80 years or however long we lived to get from point A at birth to point B, the accumulation of life's experiences and meanings. This is so good you all, because a lot of times people will say to me, "In the next three to five years, this is where I want to go. This is where I want to be."

But when you think about slipstreaming, you start to think about how can you collapse that time even more? What if you could do it in a year instead of three to five years? Ben asked the question, what if you could live and breathe every moment of your 80 year life in the first 25, thus extending your earthly possibilities by 55 years? He goes on to talk about Einstein's relativity theory and how that theory says that time is not sequential or fixed, but rather it's flexible and non-linear. It can be stretched, squeezed, bent, changed. This book will blow your mind. This is why I've had to read it several times from front to back to really understand what it means to slipstream. But then I started to think about my own slipstreams and how I was able to get somewhere so much more quickly than had I not found what Ben calls your worm hole.

The example he gives of his own wormhole is meeting his wife. When he met her, he had a lot of debt and she was in a better financial situation.

In one meeting, one person, one slipstream, he fell through a wormhole at the age of 24 that dropped him into a space and time approximately 20 years into his own future. Without his wife, had he done it by himself, sheer determination, it may have taken him 20 years to pay off all of that debt and create the financial wealth that he ended up creating with his wife. That is a slipstream and we find slipstreams by dropping through these worm holes. Understanding this, I can now look back on my life and see all of these worm holes that I felt through that allowed me to get into a slipstream. For example, I do feel for me that Paris was a wormhole.

Going there for the first time, I was able to quickly see a different way of living and being that probably would've taken me many years to figure out if ever on my own. The same goes for masterminds that I've been a part of. They have introduced me to concepts and there's like such an energy and a velocity that's happening in those rooms and they're moving at such speed that I get caught up in their slipstream. And without even a lot of effort, I find myself in a much different place even after a year of being in that energy, a place where maybe without that mastermind, without being in the presence of those people who were my slipstreams, it may have taken me 10 to 15 to 20 years to get to. The next thing that I learned in this book really blew my mind and made me think about how I'm not only living my life but my days because I want you all to remember this.

A well lived life is nothing more than a collection of well lived days. With this idea of slipstreaming, I started to think about the distance that I travel in a day. What results have I produced? What have I learned? How much have I grown in a single 24 hour period? What the book says is if we measure life by distance rather than time, some people may travel great distances on a given day, while others can't remember a single significant thing they did. Listen, there have been many days where I look back, I'm like, "What did I do?" Just felt like I was going through the motions, just doing what I was expected to do and as a result I don't feel like I was getting traction and actually making progress or distance. Now, how do we measure distance? That's a question we need to ask ourselves, but for me it is progress made, change experienced, experiences had, and it could even be distances traveled quite literally.

And the example that Ben gives in the book is this guy that he met through couch surfing where I guess he was a host for people who were couch surfing and this guy had sold everything he owned and he took a leap and he decided that he was going to travel the world and he experienced 32 weeks of travel in a single year. And he was talking about how most people, they'll never experience that in a lifetime.

In fact, the average American, I think has a two week trips every 52 weeks. This guy had experienced 16 years of vacation in just eight months. When you think about looking at your life and time as distance traveled rather than time passed, you can start to see how you can move really fast. When I think about my life in that way, I'm like, I am moving so fast, I'm covering a lot of distance in a shorter amount of time than most people. Why is that?

And I can tell you it's not because I'm special or have some gift that you don't have. The first thing is that I set really big goals for myself. I call them extraordinary goals, and Ben says it in the book, if your goals that you're pursuing do not require worm holes, your approach to life is far too small. The highest pursuits available are those that literally require exceptions to the rules because such aims cannot be done conventionally. When I set these big goals, I have to think in such bigger ways, and me thinking in such bigger ways allows me to access possibilities that I would never access without having had that really big goal. The other way that I feel that I'm able to travel a lot of distance in a shorter amount of time is by focusing on results. When I'm planning my days, when I'm planning my weeks, even when I'm planning my years, I'm always focused on creating a result in a certain amount of time.

This is very different than sitting down and working on something. Working on something can lead to just a lot of busy work. When I sit down and I look at my calendar, I can see what needs to be completed? What is the finished product that's going to happen during this time slot? And because of that, I'm able to make a lot of progress in my days so that at the end of the day I'm like, "Wow, I really accomplished a lot." And listen, y'all, I know that feeling of not having that direction. In fact, I was telling a fellow entrepreneur of mine who's also a friend who feels like she's not making a lot of progress. I told her, I'm like, "One of the hardest things to do is to figure out what you want to accomplish in a day. Once you do that, then you just have to show up and do what you've said you're going to do."

But especially when you're in business, that can be the hardest thing to figure out, like what do I need to be focusing on that's going to carry me the furthest in the shortest amount of time? And in my business, that typically comes down to sales and marketing and fulfillment. Making sure that I am offering my clients, my existing clients, the best possible experience, as well as doing the work to expose more people to the School of Self-Image and what it is that we do. The other reason why I feel like I'm able to cover a lot of distance in a shorter amount of time is the speed of my decisions and the magnitude of my decisions.

Bigger decisions and shorter amount of time to make decisions helps me to cover a lot of ground. I think back to 2020, I feel like I lived four or five lifetimes in that one year, and that was a year I made huge decisions and I made a lot of them.

For any of you that feel like you're not getting momentum and you're not moving as quickly as you would like to, you're not covering a lot of ground, look at how maybe you're not making decisions in your life. Even looking at next year, I'm spending right now the week planning out my 2023 and I'm making big decisions. I'm planning for the results and I'm doing it quickly. I'm not going to spend in indecision. And because of that, I feel like I'll be able to cover a lot of ground in 2023 compared to how I used to move, let's say 10 years ago. The next lesson that had a big impact on my life was Parkinson's law, which states that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. This means if you give yourself 10 years to reach a goal, guess how long it will take you? 10 years.

But what if you only gave yourself a year? How would you have to think differently? How would you show up differently? What choices would you make that you're not currently making? Ben argues in the book that to slow time one only needs to set shorter timelines. If the goal is to get to Hawaii in 15 years, reduce that timeline to 15 months and voila, put on your flower t-shirt. If a task is perceived to be unimportant, it will take enormous amounts of time to complete. Conversely, if a task is perceived to be important, it will get done soon, sometimes immediately depending on how important and urgent the task is. If you want to cover a lot of distance and live a lot of life, use Parkinson's law, use it to condense time, give yourself less time to reach your goals, less time to finish tasks.

And as someone who has done this, I can tell you for you perfectionists out there, this is going to be difficult because we're used to giving ourselves a lot of time to really overthink and make ourselves miserable, constantly fixing and editing and improving and never really putting our work or our dreams and desires into the world. When I started to give myself less time to complete things, number one, I was way more focused. I didn't even have time for that chatter in my head. I'm like, "Listen, you got an hour to get this done, let's go." And as a result, I've been able to achieve a lot more and less amount of time. I've been able to cover more ground than a lot of people. And using Parkinson's law is one of the ways that I've been able to do that. Here is an example that Ben gives in the book.

He's so smart. I love this book so much, you have to get a copy of it. But he talks about him and Tim, they had the same goal.

If Tim could accomplish this goal in one day, like make a successful multi-million dollar investment, the same likely would take me 10 or more years. Tim is moving over 3,650 times faster than me. He's talking about himself, Ben, thus time has dilated 3,650 times for Tim. While he can now set grander and greater goals, I continue plugging along. One day to Tim is 3,650 days to me. When I read that, that blew my mind because what I see is Tim is experiencing the compound effect. What that one slipstream did for him where he was able to make a successful multimillion dollar investment has now compounded his success. He's able to go even faster in relationship to distance covered in his life.

He also talks about Bill Gates is another one who's moving so fast. He has potentially traveled the same distance in his life as the combined distance of millions of people when you think about all that he's accomplished. Bill Gates has lived the same years as most people do from a linear chronological perspective. However, from a nonlinear perspective, he is squeezing the same amount of life into seconds that most people experience in their lifetime. I love that he says the goal isn't an infinite quantity of time, but the highest quality of time. This is where time slows. He goes on to say people who think I will be happy when are speeding up their time rather than slowing it down. In other words, they believe that once they accomplish a certain task or goal, only then will time slow. If we could learn how to get to where we want instantaneously, we could learn the truth that happiness is now, time can slow now.

There is always a way to get to where we want to go almost instantly. He also says change doesn't have to take a long time. It happens the instant we decide. And I've been experiencing this a lot lately. I used to believe it took a long time to change. And as long as I thought that, guess what? It took a long time to change. And I will say that when you first learn the power of your mind and you're not used to practicing it, it takes a while to really grasp the practice and the concept. But now I can see in my life where I'm like, I'm done. I'm changing, done, not talking about anymore. It's time for a whole new way of being. And that one moment, that one decision, I can feel change inside of me. He also says change doesn't have to take a long time. It happens the instant we decide. And

I've been experiencing this a lot lately. I used to believe it took a long time to change. And as long as I thought that, guess what? It took a long time to change. And I will say that when you first learn the power of your mind and you're not used to practicing it, it takes a while to really grasp the practice and the concept. But now I can see in my life where I'm like, "I'm done.

I'm changing, done, not talking about anymore. It's time for a whole new way of being." And that one moment, that one decision, I can feel change inside of me. Think about whatever it is that you just keep struggling with, you keep coming back to it. You keep wanting to get coached on it.

What if you just decided, "I'm done. I'm done with the self doubt. I'm done with the people pleasing, I'm done?" And you committed to that decision and you practiced out that decision. You may find that change doesn't take that long. What happens is you free up all of that energy of working on a problem that's not really moving you forward to now having that energy to focus on tackling issues and obstacles from the future, new issues that are going to grow you and help you to create the results that you want. One of my favorite sections of the book is called Throwing Yourself Into the Fire, and it starts out with a quote by Mario Andretti where he says, if everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough. Oh my goodness, I'm going to repeat that. If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough. Listen, I know I got some control freaks in my community.

I am one of them. I like to control things. But when things seem under control, I do know that our goals aren't big enough. We're not moving fast enough. And I believe one of the biggest myths that so many of you are struggling with is that one day you're going to have it all under control. But what if that's not the objective? What if you attempting to keep everything under control is causing you to not live as much life as possible for you? What if that is what's causing it to take so long to get to Hawaii when you could be there in five weeks instead of 15, trying to control everything? When you set these big goals and maybe you are in a slipstream, it's going to feel jarring. It's going to rock your world, it's going to challenge your identity. What we often do when we're in these moments is like, let's hurry up and get through it, right?

Many of my clients will be like, "Can you hurry up and help me feel better?" And I'm like, "What's the rush? Why are we trying to hurry up this process?" And he talks about in this chapter I thought was so interesting, when pilots experience turbulence, guess what they often do? They slow the plane down. To speed it up can cause negative effects. They actually have to slow the plane down when it's going through turbulence. When you find yourself experiencing the growth and the pain of growth and the pain of change and you've literally thrown yourself into the fire and you feel like you've lost control, first of all, just know that's normal. That is the secret to not only change, but I think to success. And don't add resistance by trying to hurry up and get through it.

Just relax, slow the plane down a little bit so it can get through the turbulence most effectively.

You all, I feel like I need two hours to share all of the little notes that I've written from this book, but it's so good. Here's another thing that he said. Not only is time the ultimate currency, but in actuality, time is our only currency. Our time is the only thing that really belongs to us. Everything else belongs to the world and the universe. We can't take our money or stuff with us when we die, although we may own something, we don't really own it. At most we are stewards over our possessions, but they are ultimately the Earth's. The only thing that is fundamentally ours is our time. To waste our time is to waste ourselves. Gosh, that is so good. Makes me think about how we're spending our time.

Are we spending our time on the things that we really want to be spending it on, that is growing us, fulfilling us, that is helping us to create the visions that we have for our lives? He says there are three distinct requirements for personal freedom. Number one, a heart at peace. Number two, healthy relationships. And number three, upright character. There are many successful businesses, but few successful families. I remember when I started my business, I had a big fear like a lot of people do that it was going to cost me my family and my relationships, that I was going to become a slave to my business, because there are a lot of examples of that in the world. But I decided that I wanted to be an example of what I call leisurely hustling, where I combine my ambition with my ease. And because of that, I've had the most incredible experiences since I started my business. Now I have friends who've grown their businesses much more quickly than I have.

But when I think about the life I've lived over the last 15 years, I've lived way more life. I've traveled more. I also didn't own a lot of stuff, so I didn't have to work in such a way that I had to pay off a lot of stuff because I didn't have a house, I haven't had a car payment. I've saved up my money, paid for my cars. I didn't have a lot of debt. And because of that, I didn't have the pressure of like, "Oh, I need to make so much money to pay for stuff," which is the situation a lot of people get themselves into. I've grown my business more slowly revenue wise, but I've also lived well below my means over the last 10, 15 years. And because of that, I've been able to live so much life because I wanted to not only have a successful business, but I wanted to have a successful life. It was so important to me.

For any of you that are afraid that you're going to sacrifice your family and the things that mean so much in order to be successful, I want you to challenge that statement. It's not true. Find examples and evidence of people who have done it in a way that fills aligned and true to you so that you know that it's also possible for you. I believe you can have a successful business and an extremely successful family life and life in general. In our world with limitless options, limitless books to read, limitless clothes to wear, limitless paths to take, it is extremely important to be picky. This is so good. Think about all of the things that are vying for your attention on Instagram, which podcasts to listen to, which books to read, where to go on vacation, what clothes to wear, what to eat.

We have so many options and so much coming at us that we have to be very discerning about what we allow into our world. It's why I'm always preaching about our environment. It's very important that we don't bombard ourselves and suffocate ourselves with people and things and objects and options, but we are very selective. It just frees up our mind. It gives us more space to live more fully. He also says that those who become the greatest and go the farthest are highly selective about what they take on. They are clear on where they want to go and recognize that most of what life offers will not get them there. Almost everything in life is a non-essential distraction. God, that is so good and so true. For me, it's why I love to limit my teachers. I like to have a max of three teachers at any one point.

And usually they are three teachers in very different areas, but a lot of people, they'll go out and get three or four coaches all in the same area and then they become confused and conflicted. And it's almost like they're just stuffing their brain with excess in hopes that that's going to be what gets them there. I love getting rid of distractions, having focus, knowing where I want to go, and then finding the person or two that I think can help me get there. That is how you make progress. He says, "Most of us engage in far too many priorities. If we have more than three, we have none." And I've been preaching this for years. I always believe you should have no more than three priorities. And in my membership, I always encourage my members to have just one extraordinary goal. Why? Because you can get laser focused.

You can live so much life in a year by going after that one big goal versus allowing your attention to be splattered to four or five tiny goals. That one big goal is going to change you way more than four or five, six little mini goals. But when it comes to your priorities, if you have 10 priorities, do you have any priorities or is just everything a priority in your mind? And if everything is a priority, then nothing really is. I love this saying in the book.

"Despite turbulence and other conditions keeping the plane off course, 90% of the flight, most flights arrive at the correct destination at the correct time. The reason for this phenomenon is quite simple. Through air capped traffic control and the inertial guidance system, pilots are constantly correcting. Essentially, the plane is on a straight course and keeps getting nudged a degree off course here and pushed a degree or two off course there. When immediately addressed, these course corrections are not hard to manage. However, if a pilot only occasionally checked the course, the aircraft could potentially become so far off course that the requisite corrections would take substantial time and resources to execute."

Whew, that was a mouthful, but hear what he's saying. If you know where you want to go and you're constantly making corrections when you're off course a little bit, chances are you're going to arrive at your desired destination on time. But it's when we don't check in with ourselves and we get so off course that then it feels like it's going to take forever to get back on, and it is going to slow you down. Checking in with yourself, having that awareness is how you stay on course. And the way that I do that is to constantly check in with my emotional guidance system, check in, say, "I'm feeling, what am I thinking that's creating that?" And course correcting, getting myself in an emotional state and checking the progress on my goals that I have.

Checking the progress for my extraordinary goal. I'm looking at every month, where should I be? Am I close? If not, what happened? How can I course correct? Doing that will help you arrive at where you want to be if not on time, not too far from the time that you gave yourself. Here's another takeaway. True commitment can only occur when turning back is no longer an option. This moment constitutes conversion in the highest regards. Failure is no longer caused by a lack of commitment. If you're going to fail, you're going to fail epically. If you're going to succeed, you will live at your highest level. Listen, y'all, what if we all decided to fail epically? And I'm not talking because we were scared and we didn't show up, but because literally we gave it our a hundred percent and it didn't work out? Most people don't fail in that way.

Most people fail in the privacy of their own homes and in their own mind because they're not even trying. They're not even going out there because they're so afraid to fail. I was actually talking with my business image mastermind ladies about this very topic, and what I told them is that I got so much power when I literally burned the bridge. For example, when I left nursing, it forced me to figure things out. As long as I was in nursing, I had something to fall back on. But the moment I walked away, I was like, "Okay, sister, let's go, see what you got."

And I've done that several times in my life because it called forth a new part of me. I've told the story on here, but when I moved into a penthouse, I was like, "Okay, let's see what you got. Can you live in a penthouse?"

Turns out I could, but I didn't give myself an out. I knew that to fail was going to have a big consequence, and so it forced me to go all in. And it just so happens that when you go all in, your chances of success are way higher. Another thing that he says in the book is when you commit to something a hundred percent, all of your future choices are already made no matter how attractive the circumstances. And that's true, when you decide what your vision is for your life. When you set those big extraordinary goals, within that decision, other decisions are made. You are deciding where you're going to focus your time and energy, where you're going to focus your attention. It requires that you have to tune out a lot of the other possibilities. You have to say no a lot.

Here's another takeaway. Avoid checking email or answering the phone during the first few hours of your day. That time is sacred. Checking your email is simply a database of other people's agendas. Thus, by checking your email at the beginning of the day, you have already set a pattern that your day is not going to be designed by you, but someone else. Y'all, this book is so good. I could keep going. Like I said, I feel like I need two hours. But you can see it's all about time and leveraging your time. And this one is big. This is why I love to take time out in the morning for myself. I love to journal. I love to read. I love to listen to music. I love to get into my zone. I love to really focus on my state of being, because if I don't, I'm going to get swept up in the world's state of being.

And you all know that that is usually not a place that we want to be swept up into. The next takeaway is so big, and I wish I would have practiced it earlier. He says, "Leveraging other people's time, skills and money is essential for getting where you want to go faster. You simply don't have the time to do it all." I know that there are many of you listening to this who are trying to do it all, and you're exhausted, you're overwhelmed, and you're burnt out. And that starts to affect you physically. And you may feel like there's no way out of this, but I want you to consider that the best way to get out of this is to get support. It is okay to delegate. It is okay to hire people. If you look at the most successful people, they didn't do it on their own.

They are surrounded by people who help them, who have skills that they don't have, who have passions that they don't have, who do things way better than they do, thus freeing up their time to focus on their goals and their vision. This next takeaway is powerful, and I want you just to consider the truth of the statement.

He says, "We all have invisible doors in our direct proximity that will transport us decades into our best futures." And this is so true. No matter where you are in your life right now, you are surrounded by individual doors. I always say you're just one decision away of changing your entire life. And I think about those invisible doors that I finally found that changed the trajectory of my life. I would not be here had it not been for me stepping through these wormholes into a slipstream.

One of them is coaching. I am a hundred percent sure that I would not be the woman I am today without hiring a coach, without joining coaching programs. I think about the women who join the School of Self-Image. That is the invisible door that was made visible to them. And once they step through it, they are never the same. They can't go back. It changes them. And I'm sure if we were to do a study of these women and watch them over the course of a decade or more, we would be able to see how that one decision completely changed the trajectory of their lives. This has happened to me when I've joined masterminds, when I have discovered certain teachers, when I've gone to certain places. Right now around you, even though you may not be able to see them, I want you to know there are invisible doors around you, close to you.

I want you to start looking for them because when you step through them, they will transport you decades into your best future. Here's another great takeaway. Life is filled with an almost infinite wealth of hard decisions. You're bound to fumble along the way. It's going to happen., y'all. Don't try to avoid it. I think the more you fail and the faster you fail, the quicker you're going to be successful. Don't try to avoid the hard. Don't stay stuck in indecision. I always say the most important decision is the decision after the decision, deciding how you're going to feel about it. And I don't care how my decisions turn out. I always choose to feel proud of myself. I always choose to feel confident in my decisions because I know that decisions give me power. I know that I need to make a lot of decisions and so to make those decisions and then doubt them and regret them, there's just no upside ever.

I just always choose to feel good about them, and I know that they'll lead me to the next thing that I'll need to decide. But a lot of you are so afraid of making the wrong decision that you don't make any decision and then you feel stuck. You're going to fumble and it's okay, but you're going to be fumbling forward and that's what's important. Okay, my last takeaway from Slipstream Time Hacking is this. When the end of life comes, we leave with nothing but our relationships. What does that tell us? In our pursue for success and pursuit of our extraordinary goals, don't take your relationships for granted, especially the relationship that you have with yourself.

Make sure that you are a priority in this quest and this adventure of life. And make sure that you're carving out time to spend with those that mean the most to you.

Because truly without relationships, what is this experience? Pretty dull and lonely. I hope you all enjoyed this review of Slipstream Time Hacking by Benjamin Hardy. Let me know. If you enjoyed this, I definitely have other books that I would love to share with you that have had a big impact on my life. I hope you all have a wonderful week, and I will see you in the next episode. Hey, have you grabbed your free copy of the School of Self-Image Manifesto? If not, what in the world? Head over to schoolofselfimage.com/manifesto and get a copy that teaches you how to think and show up in the areas of mindset, style, and surroundings so that you can transform your self-image.

Enjoy the Show? Don't miss another episode!Pick your favorite platform below:The Self-Image Manifesto

You’re Invited To Live An Extraordinary Life!

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Slipstream Time Hacking: How to Cheat Time, Live More, And Enhance Happiness

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Today’s edition of The Edit is The Sucess Issue.

In this issue, I want to break down what I believe success is and how you can define it for yourself.

Let’s start with this week’s podcast:

What is Success?

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Have you ever felt like you wanted to leave something or someone, even though you loved them so much?

That’s how I feel about Denver.

I’ve lived in Denver for over two years now. It was my refuge after leaving a relationship. It’s where I spent most of the pandemic alone.

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One of my favorite things to do is raise my standards

For my health and wellness choices

For the places I frequent

For the kinds of conversations I’m available for

For the business results I achieve

For the quality of my relationships

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Here’s my unapologetic truth…

I love the feeling of luxury.

Opulent. Rich. Prosperous. Abundant.

Luxury is definitely a vibe… but the definition, according to Miriam-Webster, may surprise you

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Welcome to this edition of The Edit – The Mary Anne Issue. It’s a tribute to all the women around the world who are doing this big, beautiful life in style, right down to the very last swipe of gorgeous lip color.

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Welcome to The Starry-Eyed Issue. Let me show you how to let your natural charm shine through, so you can add a dash of your magic to everything you do.

I want you to feel captivating in any social situation. I want you to feel worthy of the life you desire.

Because you’re SO worthy.

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This edition of The Edit is called The Knockout Issue. It’s for the women who desire to cultivate their own beauty, inside and out.

Step one, we need a beauty philosophy. Here’s mine:

Beauty is not only born. It is created - one thought, feeling, and action at a time.

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This edition of The Edit is The Big Issue. I want to inspire you to think bigger, play bigger, and love life BIGGER - in ways that are more meaningful to you.

It’s not about proving anything. It’s about starting from a foundation of deep, unapologetic - non-negotiable - worthiness and self-love.

And from that space…

Seeing how big you can really play.

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Welcome to The Love Issue.

In this issue, I want to share the secret to attracting love:

Love yourself as much as you want another to love you.

Because your person will show up and, when they do, you won’t be in a rush for what’s next. You’ll simply want to enjoy every passing moment.

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Welcome to the eleventh edition of The Edit, a weekly digital magazine delivered to your inbox every Wednesday. The Edit will have the weekly School of Self-Image podcast, plus lots of inspiration and resources for your most extraordinary life. Let’s get started with a little Summer fun!

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Welcome to the tenth edition of The Edit, a weekly digital magazine delivered to your inbox every Wednesday. The Edit will have the weekly School of Self-Image podcast, plus lots of inspiration and resources for your most extraordinary life. Let’s get started with a little Summer fun!

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Welcome to the ninth edition of The Edit, a weekly digital magazine delivered to your inbox every Wednesday. The Edit will have the weekly School of Self-Image podcast, plus lots of inspiration and resources for your most extraordinary life. Let’s get started with a little Summer fun!

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Welcome to the eighth edition of The Edit, a weekly digital magazine delivered to your inbox every Wednesday. The Edit will have the weekly School of Self-Image podcast, plus lots of inspiration and resources for your most extraordinary life. Let’s get started with a little Summer fun!

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Sometimes we feel like our stars have radiated their last bits of light, and we would prefer to be sucked into a black hole rather than get up to face the world.

It's not uncommon to feel like this. I've been there myself.

There are days when covering our heads with a blanket seems like the only reasonable thing to do.

Perhaps you think, "I just don't like socializing. I'm an introvert."

While this might be true, it's worth taking a closer look. If this meh feeling is your everyday reality, you might not be such a homebody after all – it could be that you're struggling with a poor self-image.

What is Self-image, and Why Does it Matter? Cleveland Clinic describes self-image as the mental picture we have of ourselves. It involves the thoughts that run through our minds as we look in the mirror and what we think about our other traits, such as whether we are intelligent or kind.

Our self-image influences every aspect of our lives:

How we interact with others
The goals we set (or fail to set)
The places we hang out
Our income
How we spend our money
Who we choose to partner with romantically
The clothes we wear
Who our friends are – everything!

Self-image has nothing to do with your physical appearance or accomplishments: it's all about your perception of these things.

You can have the beauty of Saturn and a Jupiter-sized bank account and still have a poor self-image.

What Shapes Your Self-Image? Where do these beliefs about yourself come from?

None of us is born with a poor self-image. Self-image is a product of learning. Somewhere down the line, probably in childhood, our self-image was damaged by a caregiver, authority figure, or someone we love. Someone might have called us "stupid" or failed to give us the recognition we desperately needed. Perhaps we've had a series of failed romantic relationships that made us believe there must be something astronomically wrong with us.

Regardless of our experiences – good and bad – they've played a part in shaping how we see ourselves.

Some experiences felt good, and some felt bad, but they all influenced our thoughts. Since our thoughts create our feelings and our feelings create our behaviors, it becomes a cyclical situation where we perpetuate more of the same.

The Consequence of a Poor Self-image When we believe we are unworthy, our knee-jerk reaction is to retreat from the world and the people around us. We think if others cannot truly see us, there is little to judge and reject.

By keeping ourselves hidden and small, we hope to protect ourselves from the negative responses of others and negative situations.

Unfortunately, a poor self-image tends to operate much like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If, for example, we believe that we are unattractive and difficult to get along with, we begin acting in ways that elicit precisely the negative responses we fear.

We may slouch, avoid eye contact, or say rude things, alienating others who seek acceptance much as we do. And because we're already convinced that we're undesirable and unpleasant, we see everything through those obscure lenses. As a result, we might even push away those most determined to connect with us.

But there's something even more regrettable about moving through life with a poor self-image: we end up hiding from ourselves.

When we feel unworthy and insecure, we lack the courage and willpower to seek out and develop our best qualities. Instead, we focus so intensely on everything that's wrong with us that we don't see our potential or discover who we really are.

You're Not Broken - Your Self-image is I have good news for you, my friend. You are not broken – it's just your self-image that is.

The upside to being socialized and 'trained' into a poor self-image is that it can be unlearned. Sure, it will take some soul-searching, but changing a dimming self-image into a beaming one is possible.

And, here's the kicker. When you think you are broken, you will be on a constant journey to fix yourself. But, when you are focused on fixing yourself, you're hyper-focused on what's "wrong" with you - the things you feel resistant to.

What you resist persists.

Creating Rather Than 'Fixing' Yourself Your journey toward a healthy self-image begins and ends with you.

But how do you muster the energy when it feels like the universe has turned against you?

The first thing is to change your approach from a reactive (fixing) to a proactive (creating) one.

A reactive approach might sound a bit like this: I am silly for not thinking better thoughts about myself. People don't like me because I'm incapable of getting out of this rut. I need to fix myself, or I might end up with nothing and no one, which is probably what I deserve anyway.

When you're in damage-control mode – you stay focused on the problem.

On the other hand, a proactive approach might sound like this: I realize that my poor self-image is causing problems and unhappiness in my life. I've been hurt in the past, but it no longer has to thwart me. I plan to create myself – to become the best person I can be. I am taking positive action to build myself up toward that goal.

When you're choosing to create yourself – you are focused on the solution.

Do you see the difference?

In a best-case scenario, both approaches may eventually deliver the same result, but you'll get there much faster (and the journey will be happier) if you choose to think about what you can do instead of what you have to mend.

A creative approach to a healthy self-image means that you take action – even if you don't always feel up to it. It means you act as if. It means living from your future.

How to Begin Creating Your Best Self So, what kind of actions can you take to begin creating your most luminous self? Cleveland Clinic offers some helpful suggestions:

Take stock of your current self-image
Consider the things that have hurt you most, embrace them and then let them go
Identify negative thought patterns and
Make a list of your strengths (natural abilities, skills, personality traits)
Ask your friends and family to add to the list
Set a few realistic, measurable goals toward improving your strengths
Cultivate the habit of speaking kindly to yourself
Write down a few mantras and stick them somewhere visible
When setbacks happen, consider how far you've come
Celebrate every small win

Shine that big, bold light of yours Knowing yourself and your potential must be one of life's greatest joys. It fosters an optimistic outlook and motivates you to uncover the best parts of yourself. You can accept your weaknesses when you have a good self-image while making the absolute most of your strengths.

There will still be days when you don't feel good about yourself, but they will become fewer once you start exploring and building on your talents and skills.

You will also realize how your unique brand of shine serves everyone. Your family, friends, and community will benefit from your light – and it might even inspire them to fuel their own.

Self-Image Makeover

Live Your Life With Style, Flare, and Elegance

yes! i want a makeover!

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Listen to the Full Episode:

For the most part, my personal growth has been incremental, small steps, little shifts, tiny changes that, over time, have added up to create big results. But then, every once in a while, I’m amazed by some of the bigger, more sudden shifts.

I’ve experienced a huge transformation just this past week. And when I got curious and decided to look back over the handful of times in my life where I’ve experienced quantum shifts in my self-image, I discovered what the secret is. It’s all about your environment, and I'm sharing all the details with you in today’s episode.

Tune in this week to discover the fastest and most effective way to experience massive changes in your self-image. I’m sharing how I’ve experienced this myself multiple times in my life, what you can do to put your thoughts and limiting beliefs to one side and how to give yourself the opportunity to thrive.

Women have been asking me for years to do something around business. And I’ve also had many women ask me for a mastermind. That’s why I am incredibly excited to announce that we are opening enrolment for my new Business Image Mastermind! This is going to be a small group of extraordinary women, we kick off in May 2022, and applications are now open! Click here for more information and to apply.

Have you grabbed your free copy of the School of Self Image Manifesto? If not, what in the world? Click here to get your copy and learn how to think and show up in treas of mindset, style, and surroundings so that you can transform your self-image.

What You Will Discover: * Why mindset is incredibly important, but it’s not everything. * How the importance of our environment has been left out of the conversation in the personal development world. * Times in my life where changing my environment has made it so much easier to think the way I want to think. * How to see where your current environment may be holding you back. * What you can do to shape and curate your environment to create the results you really want in your life.

Featured on the Show: * Download the Self-Image Manifesto and be the first to hear about amazing developments in our community! * Learn more about The School of Self-Image and join today! * Applications are now OPEN for my Business Image Mastermind! Click the link to apply. * Love the show? Leave a review of the show in Apple Podcasts (click the link to find out how). * Follow me on Instagram! * Find me on Facebook!

DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPT

Episode Transcript:

I had an epiphany this week. Do you want to know what it is? When I look back over the handful of times in my life where I’ve experienced quantum shifts in my self-image, I discovered what the secret is. And I’m sharing it with you in today’s episode, so let’s dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here’s your hostess, master life coach Tonya Leigh.

Hello, my beautiful friends. I feel like I have so much to catch you up on, and it’s crazy because it’s only been a week since I recorded the last podcast. But a lot can happen in a week. I have felt a big internal shift over the last seven days. And there have been moments along my journey where I’ve experienced these just massive shifts, like exponential growth.

For the most part, however, my growth has been incremental, little steps, little shifts, little changes over time that have added up to create big results. But then, every once in a while, I’m amazed by some of my shifts.

And this last week, I was trying to figure out so I could share with you all what happened this last week that allowed for a big internal shift. And I figured out what it is, and I can’t wait to share it with you.

And I went back, and I revisited some of my other bigger shifts along my personal development journey and it was this exact thing that led to it.

Within the School of Self-Image, we focus on three main areas: your mindset, your style, and your surroundings. Now, of course, mindset is everything. What you think, you become. Your thinking is driving your life.

And so, it’s very important that you think on purpose. But when I think back over my own personal development journey and how I completely transformed my self-image, I completely reinvented myself, I created a new identity. And I did it by up-leveling my style and my environment.

And by doing those two things, it became so much easier to think thoughts that would eventually completely change how I see myself, and therefore the results that I’ve been able to create.

But one of the areas within the personal development space that is not talked about enough is your environment. We spend a lot of time doing thought work, working on our thoughts, trying to think better. And I’m all for that and that is necessary.

However, when I have placed myself in elevated environments, it has become so much easier, and at times effortless to think the way I wanted to think. And so, when I look back over the past week and what happened that caused this big shift, it’s that placed myself in an enhanced environment.

Now, if you’re a member within the School of Self-Image, we are devoting the entire month of April to this topic. I’m sharing many personal examples of how I have enhanced my own environment as well as leading you through some really deep reflection questions. And you’ve got a challenge this month, all around elevating your environment.

But for this episode, I just want to throw this out there for you all to consider, how your environment may be holding you back and how to shape and curate and design your environment to help you create the results you want in your life.

So, two things happened last week that led to some really big shifts. The first thing is I went to see an attorney who ended up just blowing my mind with his business savvy and his recommendations for me.

Being in that room with someone who was thinking way bigger than I had allowed myself to think and envision – and I thought I was a big thinker. I thought I had big visions. But this man, again, he blew my mind. And his belief in me, his faith in me and what he could see changed my life. I can’t wait to see what comes from that.

But you have to understand, I placed myself in a new environment. Had I tried to get there on my own at home, I don’t think I could have gotten there. Because what I’ve come to understand with environments, every environment holds a limit on possibility.

So, when I think about the environment that grew up in, there were things outside of that container, outside of that environment that was possible. But had no idea that it existed because those possibilities did not exist in that environment.

It’s like my grandmother used to say, “You don’t know what you don’t know.” You don’t know what’s possible unless you’ve been exposed to the possibility of it. It’s why, a lot of times when people come into my world, I expose them to possibilities that they had no idea existed for them.

I think about my daughter and my niece that, because of my journey and what I’ve been able to create, they now have a new possibility that maybe would not have existed for them had I not blazed the trail.

So, sitting in that room with this attorney gave me new ideas, new possibilities, and I could feel a shift in my self-image. Now, at first, I wanted to shrink away from it because it didn’t align with how I see myself. It was outside of my current self-image. But I began to play with the “Why not me? What if this could happen? What if this is my calling? What if this is the next evolution of me?”

And the more I stayed in that questioning and that kind of thought process, I could feel myself stepping into a new version of myself. Now, do I fully believe it yet? No. I still have to work on thinking intentionally and practicing believing in what he envisioned. And I also am sitting with, if it’s something I even want.

Like, truly, deep down, if I now know that that is a possibility for me, is it something that I really want? But that’s for another podcast. What I want you to understand is that, by placing myself in a new environment, it gave me access to new possibilities and to new thoughts about myself.

I walked out of that room seeing myself differently. And so, no matter if I go after this opportunity or not, that shift that I experienced from a 90-minute meeting will have a positive impact on my life.

The second thing that happened is I went to Scottsdale for the weekend, and I stayed in this beautiful boutique resort with my daughter and her friend. I was there for her birthday but also for some business. And I also spent time with my best friend Brooke.

And that new environment that was beautiful and luxurious, plus the conversations that we were having, very future-focused, excited about our lives, talking about our dreams, talking about what is next for us, that three days in Scottsdale created another shift.

And I think what happened is I went into that weekend already in an elevated state because of the meeting I had just had, and I carried that energy through. And so, the energy that was behind the shift was already moving really fast. And so, it just kept moving faster and faster. All because I was in a new environment.

Again, I’ve had so many of these experiences, you all. And it’s now starting to become so clear. You know, I’ve had big shifts, but I didn’t ever stop and relate it to, “Oh my goodness, every one of my big shifts have not happened in the environment of sameness,” meaning sitting at home looking at the same people, having the same conversations, looking at the same things, driving the same way to the store, to work, wearing the same things.

I couldn’t access new thoughts in an environment of sameness. It has been when I have placed myself in new, elevated environments that I’ve had my biggest shifts. Now, let’s not discount all the little, tiny shifts that I’ve had and that you’ve most likely had in that environment of sameness, thinking a little bit better, feeling a little bit better, showing up a little bit better, and creating a little bit better results.

And those are beautiful shifts. And they do add up. But I’m talking about the big, exponential shifts. I have never had one of those in an environment of sameness. They have always been when I have intentionally put myself in elevated environments.

I have also had these big shifts by being a part of a mastermind. I’ve also had these big shifts when traveling. One of my big shifts was the first time I went to Paris. All of a sudden, my senses, everything was bombarded with newness, new possibilities, new ideas. It was there that I realized, “Wow, I want to be a stylish woman. I’m tired of looking frumpy.” And I had examples all around me of what that could potentially look like.

And so, I came home, and I started to surround myself to create environments that fostered me becoming a stylish woman.

You know, when you think about your environment, it is everything that surrounds you. It’s the books you read, the movies you watch, the people you hang out with, the conversations you have, the car you’re in, the house you live in, the city you live in. It’s the clothes in your closet. It’s the state of your home. It’s everything outside of you.

So, when you think about something that you want, ask yourself, “Does my environment support this desire?” And if not, I highly encourage you to up-level your environment.

I have always been a huge proponent in blooming where you’re planted, meaning whatever environment that you find yourself in, you need to nurture it. You need to make it the best it can be. Every one of us, no matter where we are, there are things that we can do in our current environment that will help us see ourselves differently.

Maybe it’s upgrading your sheets. Maybe it’s upgrading your wardrobe. Maybe it’s upgrading the conversations that you’re having with your spouse or friends. There are many different ways to upgrade your current environment.

But then, there may come a point where you have outgrown that environment. And all of the thought work in the world is not going to get you to the next level. And the reason is, circling back to what I said earlier, your current environment only contains a certain level of possibility. And it can be limiting you.

If you feel like you’re being limited in your life, chances are, you’re in a limited environment. People around you are saying that what you want isn’t possible. And can you create in that kind of environment? Yes, but it is so much harder.

It is so much harder to think the thoughts that you need to think and to believe what you need to believe when you’re in an environment that is not conducive to that. Sometimes, instead of sitting around and doing a lot of thought work, the quickest way to change how you see yourself and to start changing your life is to put yourself in new, elevated, and enhanced environments.

There are times in my life now where I’m feeling a lot of negative emotion. And I’ll sit down, and I will do thought work. I’ll look at what’s going on in my brain, and that will definitely show me why I’m feeling the way I’m feeling.

But now, I’m at a point in my life where a lot of times, what I do is I just pick myself up and I go plant myself in a new environment. It might be a new coffee shop. It might be a new store. It might be a new park. But just by putting myself in a new, interesting, and elevated environment, automatically I start to think better-feeling thoughts.

I start to access data and wisdom and things that were not hanging out in the environment that I left. I also have seen, in my own life, that when I am constantly mixing up my environments, going to new places, meeting new people, my life just gets better and better. And it’s because I’m exposing myself to new possibilities, new thoughts, new energy.

Let’s face it, you all, life can become stagnant. Why? Because we become stagnant. Again, we sit at home in sameness. We wake up thinking the same thoughts, feeling the same ways, doing the same things, getting up, getting our coffee, putting on the same clothes, driving to work in the same way, hanging out with the same people, just doing the same things, coming home, repeating the night before.

And then, we wonder why we feel so stuck. We wonder why life feels so hard. We wonder why it feels so hard to change. Change up your environment. I’m telling you all, it is the quickest, easiest way to change your self-image. That and then your clothing. Those two things have changed my self-image more than anything else.

Now, here’s the thing; it changed my mind. But I didn’t have to sit at home in sameness, working on my thoughts, writing them down, trying to think better thoughts. Sometimes, it was just putting myself in new environments that that just happened almost effortlessly.

You know, there is no formula to living an extraordinary life. And there have been moments in my life where I needed to sit in the sameness and work on my thoughts. Because sometimes, going to those new environments – and we talk about this in the class for this month – but sometimes, going into those new environments brought up all my limiting beliefs. And I had to work on them eventually.

But now, I’m at a point in my journey where I understand the power of thought. I understand how thoughts impact our lives. And so, I don’t have to sit around working at it so much. I think I’ve practiced thought work so much that I don’t – it’s like I’ve graduated to the next level. And the next level for me is like, “Yeah, you’re having a bad thought? Let’s go. Let’s go plant yourself in a place where there are new thoughts that you will be able to think about yourself or what’s possible that maybe you can’t access right now.”

And again, there are some times where I need to just sit down and write it all out. And only you know what’s best for you. But what I can tell you is, if you’re feeling stagnant, you’re feeling stuck, you need to get yourself in a new, elevated environment.

Go to an event. Join a mastermind. Travel to a new city. Go shop at a different grocery store. Change it up. Mix it up. Place yourself in new environments where who knows what might be hanging out waiting for you there.

Maybe it’s a person that exposes you to something that you didn’t know was possible. Maybe it’s looking at something in that new environment and accessing an idea that you could not have accessed without the prompt of that thing that you just saw. And maybe, it’s just putting yourself in a new environment that invigorates you and excites you, and then you take that energy, and you use it to fuel your dreams. You use it to transform how you see yourself.

I’ve been thinking, over the last couple of days about just this past week and the shift that I’ve had. And then I started to think about all the other prior big shifts. And I want to provide that for the people in my life.

In May, we’re going to be kicking off the Business Image Mastermind and I want to produce and curate an environment where that when women walk in, they access possibility that they didn’t even know existed.

I want them to feel excited and invigorated and elevated and then to take that energy back into their lives. And they will be able to do that because they made the decision to place themselves sin an elevated and enhanced environment.

And from what I know now, from my own personal shifts, is that if you want a big life, you need to place yourself and design and curate big environments for yourself that can hold the expansiveness of who you’re becoming, that can hold the possibilities of your wildest dreams.

And I promise you, those environments are out there. So, go find yours. Design yours and immerse yourself in them. Have a gorgeous week, my friends, and I cannot wait to see you in next week’s episode. Cheers.

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If you're one to feel jittery and nervous about upcoming events, presentations, or meetings, you're probably in good company. Most of us feel less than confident at least once in a while.

Nerves can get the best of us, so it is crucial to find ways to cope with them, banish them altogether, or even put them to your advantage.

When you can gather up all the confidence you can muster before you head into a high-pressure situation, you're bound to come out of it feeling better about yourself, stronger, and more confident in every area of your life.

Whether you're going on a date, meeting new people, throwing a soiree, or about to tackle that big project at work, these simple but effective tips will help you become more confident and handle the situation with aplomb.

Let's dive in!

Style Boosts Self Confidence No matter what the situation, feeling self-assured starts with style.

Your appearance is undoubtedly one of the essential parts of your glow; it speaks volumes about how confident you feel.

When you get ready for anything, check-in with your style and make sure:

You've dressed appropriately for the occasion
Your clothes are clean and in good condition
Your outfit speaks volumes about how you wish to show up for a situation
You've dressed with "body love" – not too baggy, not too tight, your clothing fits and flatters you just right
You feel good in it, and it makes you happy.

Can't reasonably budget a closet full of the latest haute couture? No one says you need to. However, a few good pieces with the right accessories will take your wardrobe to the next level without breaking the bank.

Finally, remember that style isn't just about clothes, hair, jewelry, and makeup. It's about your tone of voice, how you walk into a room, your attitude, and your interactions with others.

Style is all about how you show up in the world.

Check-in With Your Mindset Confidence is a mindset skill—one that you can develop and strengthen just like you would any muscle.

A confidence mindset is your willingness to try, in conjunction with your trust that you can (and will) figure it all out. Equanimity allows you to get through life’s situations with grace, and come out on top at the end of the day.

A willingness to try means a willingness to act, even if you're facing fear or uncertainty.

Before going into any situation that’s giving anxiety, breath deeply and meditate on calm self-assurance. Imagine yourself handling every moment of the encounter with composure and self- possession.

Stand Up Straight Wait. Who invited mom to this discussion?

All kidding aside, your posture is incredibly easy to overlook and something that can have a tremendous effect on how you feel.

It may not seem obvious, but you will feel much better about yourself and more vital in any situation when hold your head up high and your back straight.

Standing tall and having good posture lets the world know that you mean business.

It may take a while before this becomes second nature but over time, you will notice that sitting or standing up tall makes putting on a confident air much more effortless.

Your body language is one element that you can't afford to overlook, but that is also largely within your control, so take charge and own your posture.

Establish Eye Contact Body language can be quite telling. For example, one of the most crucial body language cues you can use to be more confident is eye contact.

If you consciously look at someone in the eye when you speak with them, it can be incredibly impactful to your overall confidence level. You will feel more sure, connected, and natural, and you will invite the person you are talking to feel the same.

Breathe Deeply and Slowly Focusing on your breathing is one of the most effective ways to center yourself and let go of anxious feelings.

When we are nervous, we tend to take shallow breaths that only inflate the upper part of our lungs. This type of breathing can cause feelings of nausea, dizziness, and fatigue- physical distractions that can only add to your unease.

By slowing down your breathing, you will quiet your mind and allow yourself to focus more on the situation at hand.

With each breath, fill your lungs by taking air into your lower abdomen and your chest. Then, inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth as slowly as possible.

If you're feeling especially anxious about something and need to calm yourself on the spot, you can try the 4-7-8 breathing technique.

The 4-7-8 breathing technique, also known as "relaxing breath," involves breathing in for four seconds, holding the breath for seven seconds, and exhaling for eight seconds. This breathing pattern aims to reduce anxiety.

Breathing deeply can do wonders for your body and mind when you need to calm nerves or build confidence before an important event or meeting. You may even find yourself less nervous once you get into the habit of doing it.

Smile The simple act of smiling can go a long way in creating a feeling of confidence and contentment within yourself and for others.

A self-assured smile will tell the world – and your brain – that you are secure in who you are, that you have no doubts in your abilities, and that you are ready to take on whatever comes your way.

The more time and effort that goes into practicing smiling, the more natural it will become. After a while, this simple task will be second nature to you, and it will make your feelings of anxiety melt away like ice on a hot day. You will develop a smile habit that is purely beneficial to your confidence levels.

Confidence is Easy When … No matter what is going on or what kind of event you are about to attend, you can control how unruffled and prepared you feel about yourself and the situation. If you start with these suggestions, you will find it easier to build and maintain your confidence throughout the day – and in life.

Start making a difference in your life and your relationships now by doing the little things you can do to gather up your cool – you’ll be surprised at how much better you feel and how much better all of your interactions become.

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I remember when I was younger, when my parents or my friends would say, “I’ve got your back,” and the relief that brought me. However, we can create that same sense of relief for ourselves. We can have our own back. And in this episode, I’m showing you how.

I remember years ago hearing Maya Angelou say, “I have my own back.” And I’ve been obsessed with the idea ever since. So, if you were a woman who had her own back, how would that make you feel? What would you be able to create? How would your world expand if you took responsibility for protecting yourself?

Tune in this week to discover how to start looking out for yourself, just like you would for your best friend. I’m sharing why the discomfort of having your own back is so worth it, and I’m walking you through how to gain that clarity and confidence that allows you to have your own back in any situation.

What You Will Discover: * Why you don’t need anyone else to have your back for you. * The incredible level of courage that comes from having your own back. * How we work in the School of Self-Image on bridging that gap from relying on others for safety, to creating it yourself. * The kinds of conversations you have with yourself when you decide to have your own back. * How to see those moments where you don’t have your own back, and how that’s showing up in your life. * What you can start doing to have your own back right now.

Featured on the Show: * Download the Self-Image Manifesto and be the first to hear about amazing developments in our community! * Learn more about The School of Self-Image and join today! * Applications are now OPEN for my Business Image Mastermind! Click the link to apply. * Snoh Aalegra * Love the show? Leave a review of the show in Apple Podcasts (click the link to find out how). * Follow me on Instagram! * Find me on Facebook!

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What would your life be like? What would you be able to create? How would you feel if you were a woman who has her own back? That’s what we’re discussing in today’s episode, so let’s dive in?

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here’s your hostess, master life coach Tonya Leigh.

Hello, gorgeous friends. How’s it going? I’m having the best morning. I’m having one of those mornings that’s, like, leisurely. I woke up at eight o’clock. I went and made a cup of coffee, turned on some Snoh Aalegra – love her voice – and now I’m recording this podcast.

I’m leaving later this afternoon to take my daughter to Scottsdale with her friend. I asked her what she wanted for her birthday, and she was like, “I just want a girls’ weekend. I want to relax by a pool. I want to really focus on health and wellbeing.”

And so, we have a spa day scheduled and we have a hike planned and I’m so excited just to disconnect for a couple of days and spend some time with my girl and her friend. It’s going to be super fun.

But today, I want to talk with you all about the concept of having your own back. I’ll never forget, years ago, I heard Maya Angelou say, “I have my own back.” And I thought, what a concept, “I have my own back.”

And I thought about the times in my life where my mom or my close friends would say to me, “I’ve got your back,” and the relief that came from that. I remember even recently, I was making a big, bold decision. And Fonz said to me, he was like, “Listen, no matter what happens, I’ve got your back.”

I thought about the time that my dear friend was leaving her husband and she was terrified. And the terror made her want to stay in a relationship that was not healthy. And I said to her one day over lunch, I’m like, “Listen, I’ve got your back.” And knowing that, for her, that gave her the courage to go out there and do the thing that she knew she needed to do, knowing that no matter what happened, someone was there to catch her if she fell and to support her and to cheer her on.

And I began to think about what it would be like if we all had our own back. Within the School of Self-Image, we focus on living and being the future versions of ourselves now. And one of the things that I envision for all of us is that our future selves, we are women that have our own backs. Which means we have to practice having our own backs now.

So, this is one of the things that I’ve been practicing for years. And I cannot tell you the peace that comes from it.

I think about my friend who, hearing me say those words to her gave her the courage and the confidence to go out and make this decision. And so, for me, knowing that I have my own back allows me to relax, allows me to take bigger risks, allows me to have the courage to go after what I want.

And so, when I was preparing for this podcast, I thought about what it really means to have our own backs. And I thought about me specifically, what it means to me when I say I have my own back.

And the first thing that came up is that I have my own back when I make decisions. And what this looks like is, when I make my decisions, I’m like, “Listen, girl, no matter what happens, I got you,” and I decide how I’m going to feel about it. I decide on the outcome that I am going to create. And then, I know that I’m going to have my own back in that process.

Versus I see so many of my clients and my friends waffling. They’re afraid to make decisions. And I believe the reason why they’re afraid is they don’t have their own backs. They spend a lot of time fearing making the wrong decision. They spend a lot of time afraid that they’re going to fail, and so they live in this space of indecision. And that indecision breeds familiarity and nothing changes.

But when you have your own back, you’re willing to make big decisions because you know that no matter what happens, you’ve got you. If you fail, you’ve got yourself, you’ve got your own back. You’re going to pick yourself up and you’re going to move on.

If you succeed, you’ve got your own back by celebrating you. And so, that is one of the ways that I practice having my own back. I have my own back when I’m willing to make the decisions and support myself, no matter what happens.

So, that’s the first thing. The other thing that came up for me is having my own back means I show up for my promises to myself. Like, you think about a friend that has your back. She’s not going to flake on you. She’s not going to tell you that she’s going to meet you for lunch and then just not show up.

She’s got you. She’s like, “Hey, listen, when I tell you I’m going to be there, I’m going to be there.” And yet, do we do that for ourselves? How many times do you promise yourself, “This is the year that I’m going to…” fill in the blank, “I’m going to get healthy. I’m going to write the book. I’m going to start the business. I’m going to start dating again. I’m going to buy the house.”

You make these big, lofty promises to yourself and then, year after year, you disappoint yourself. Having your own back means, “Hey, listen, my dreams are important to me. And when I promise myself that I’m going to take action to support my dreams, I show up for them. I’ve got my own back.”

The other way that I have my own back – and this is probably the biggest impact on my life. Not probably. 100%, this has had the biggest impact on my life. Having my own back means I don’t beat myself up.

If I fail, if I say something that’s offensive to someone unintentionally, if I make a mistake, if I don’t reach my goal, I don’t beat myself up over it. I know that I’m a human being having a very human experience and I’m not always going to get it right. I’m going to make mistakes, especially the bigger the life you want, the more mistakes and the more failures you have to be willing to experience.

So, I just know it’s part of the curriculum. I just know that that is the path. You cannot avoid it. And so, for me, I just don’t beat myself up, ever. There was a day that I just decided I was done beating myself up. And I’ve been practicing that decision for years now.

And to me, this is at the core of having your own back. I think about the times that I’ve said to my friends, “Listen, I’ve got you.” And the relief that they felt. And what I was really saying to them was, “Hey, listen, no matter what happens, I’m here. We’re going to figure it out. I’m going to support you. I love you.”

And it’s taking that same energy and applying it to ourselves. Like when I think about my friends who have made big decisions, we didn’t know if they were going to succeed. It’s not a guarantee. But what I knew is that no matter what happened, we were going to learn from it, and we would figure it out and I would be there to hold her hand and wipe her tears and we are going to keep going.

And that, to me, is such a beautiful energy to apply to ourselves. So, instead of adding to our suffering when we fail, we take that layer of beating ourselves up off and we hold ourselves with grace and with love and with compassion. And we’re like, “Hey, listen, it’s part of the journey. I love you, honey. Let’s keep going.” That is having your own back.

Having your own back too means trusting your intuition, trusting your gut. So many times, we outsource this to other people. We trust other people more than ourselves. And so, it leads to this situation where you’re ignoring yourself.

And I’ve done this, especially in business. I know what I should do. I know what my community wants and what they need. I know who I am. And yet, someone will come along and say, “Hey listen, you should do this.”

And then, in the past, I have given them my power, even though it didn’t feel good. And guess what happened. It never worked out. I collected some failures along the way by not trusting my gut.

But having your own back means, “Hey, listen, I trust me. And I’m going to pay attention to my internal GPS system that is always guiding me, that’s always showing me what’s a yes and what’s a no.” And the minute I don’t have my own back and I start listening to everyone else, I abandon that navigation system.

Here’s the thing, you all. We all know what to do. That’s a belief that I have about all of us. We know what to do. And yet, sometimes we need permission. And other times, we are afraid, and so we want someone else to say to us, “Hey, listen, this is what you need to do, and I’ve got your back.”

But sometimes, what that person is telling you that you need to do is not what you need to do. So, what I’m inviting you to consider is that when no one else is around, when no one has your back, will you trust yourself enough to listen to your own intuition and make the decisions that you know you need to make and then have your own back in that process?

Ultimately, having your own back means being in service to your future self. And what I mean by this is that, many times, we look around at what is and what has been, and we keep showing up in a way that doesn’t serve the futures that we’re wanting to create.

So, for me, having my own back is getting up and getting dressed, even when my brain is telling me that it’s just not worth it today. I’m like, “No, I’ve got my own back here. I am going to get up and put something on that makes me feel amazing.”

Having my own back means going to the gym when my brain is telling me, “You should just relax today. This is too hard. You can do it tomorrow.” Having my own back is recording this podcast every Wednesday. It’s like, “I’ve got you. You’re going to do this. It’s already planned. It’s already pre-decided.”

Having my own back is the willingness to feel the discomfort of growth and change, not allowing myself to shrink. I had a really interesting moment yesterday actually that I should probably record a whole episode about. But I had a meeting with an attorney. And that meeting blew my mind, literally blew my mind.

In fact, I think what I’ll probably do is, for those of you within the School of Self-Image, I will share about this experience in Behind the Scenes.

But while I was sitting there, I could feel myself wanting to pull away. I could feel myself fighting against possibility, which is crazy, right? Someone shares with you what’s possible and you’re like, “No, no, not for me.”

And having my own back in that moment was not doing that, even though I could feel myself wanting to. Because this possibility, stepping into it is going to require that I completely shift how I see myself. It’s going to require that I step into a whole new way of being and completely transform my self-image, which is what I teach. It’s what I do.

And yet, I understand that for all of you that are going through this and you’re in that push and pull, it’s like the pull back to who you’ve been and the push towards who you’re becoming, and that’s where I was yesterday. But having your own back is the willingness to step into that next version of yourself and feel all of the discomfort that will be a part of that process, 100% guaranteed.

So, here is my question to you. Is there anyone in your life that you find yourself maybe not saying it out loud, but you’re thinking it, “Listen, I’ve got your back?”

If you have children, I’m sure you have that attitude, right? “Listen, I’ve got your back. No matter what, no matter what you do, no matter if you fail, no matter what, I am here. I am going to hold you and we’re going to get through this together.”

I want you to think about how you think about that process with that person. What does it mean to you when you think, “I have your back,” to someone else, or for someone else?

Now, what would your life be like if you applied that same concept to yourself? What would your life be like if you were a woman, or a man, who has your own back? Have a beautiful week, everyone. And I cannot wait to see you in next week’s episode.

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Do you wake up and just allow your brain to start thinking on default? Or do you create your thoughts on purpose?

Have you ever noticed that your mind is often on autopilot? Unfortunately, that can mean a lot of toxic thinking for many of us because many of our default thoughts are rooted in old beliefs that don't serve us.

We talk about mindset quite a bit in the School of Self-Image because it is essential to creating the life we want.

You must tune out the toxic thinking that keeps you down and tune into the thoughts that serve you.

It is impossible to transform your self-image without changing your thoughts and feelings. That’s because your thinking is always creating your feelings. Always. And, your thoughts and feelings influence your behaviors, choices, and ultimately, your outcomes.

Creating intentional thoughts has been a habit that has served me in amazing ways in my life. And if I find myself living on autopilot, I feel the difference right away.

Toxic Thoughts and Their Distortions Toxic thought patterns, or cognitive distortions, are irrational assumptions about yourself, people, and circumstances. Unfortunately, these illogical, skewed perspectives may be so habitual that they feel completely normal.

They're incredibly damaging and can take their toll on your physical and mental health and your relationships with others.

The following are some toxic thought patterns you may recognize as yours. If left unchecked, they can inflict tremendous damage on your self-image and your entire life.

All or Nothing Thinking Also known as black-and-white thinking, this distortion excludes shades of gray needed for objective reasoning. With all-or-nothing thinking, you only see things in extremes.

You may recognize some of these:

You're either perfectly effective or completely incompetent
You feel like an eloquent communicator or a blithering idiot
You're always right or consistently wrong
If every element isn't perfect, the entire thing is ruined

This type of thinking doesn't leave much room for you to be human.

Shoulding on Yourself and Others "Should" thinking involves rigid absolutes. This distortion is based on the words "should," "ought," and "must." For instance, "I should clean the house more often," "I must come up with better ideas at meetings," or "I ought to read more books, or I'll stagnate."

In essence, you're guilting or shaming yourself into doing something with inflexible rules, and this will only stir up self-directed anger and resentment.

If your "shoulds" include other people, such as, "She should have answered my email sooner" or "He must do favors when I ask him to," you're imposing harsh standards and expectations that are likely to go unmet.

This, in turn, will only leave you feeling disappointed, frustrated, resentful, or hurt.

Drama Catastrophizing is when you anticipate – or even expect – the worst possible outcome in any situation.

For example, if your boss or a client asks to speak with you, you just KNOW you will lose a contract or be fired.

If your partner is late getting home in the evening, your head gets busy with all kinds of horrific scenes like car accidents, love affairs, or some other catastrophic situation.

If you catastrophize, you also anguish around the "what ifs."

Let go of drama by recognizing the toxic thinking that is causing you to be certain that only extreme, negative outcomes are possible.

Mind Reading If you mind-read, you believe that you can tell what people are thinking about you. So, for instance, if someone is quiet or scowling, you conclude that they dislike you when, in fact, they just argued with their spouse.

Or, your partner says or does something that makes you feel a little off, and you decide all by yourself what they meant by it.

If you’re uncertain and your mind is telling you crazy stories, take a moment to ask.

Mental Filtering Mental filtering is when you dismiss the positives in a situation and only focus on the negatives.

Suppose you’re hosting a dinner party. One of your friends brings along two extra guests and your seating arrangement gets skewed. Instead of enjoying the camaraderie and great conversation, you spend the entire evening obsessing over how the table looks - not quite the elegance you’d painstakingly planned. You’re furious with your friend, anxious about what your guests are thinking and, as a result, your evening is ruined.

You may even take it a step further by actively transforming positives into negatives.

For example, a neighbor offers to fix your broken gate. Instead of seeing the offer as a gesture of kindness, you assume they're only doing this favor so that they can demand one in return.

If You target a single negative element in a situation, that can then sum up the whole experience, thereby creating a negative one for you.

Emotional Reasoning With emotional reasoning, you turn feelings into facts. See if some of these resonate with you:

I feel like a failure at generating leads for my business; therefore, I AM a failure
I feel like I gave an inadequate answer in that board meeting; consequently, I am stupid
I don't love how I look in skinny jeans; that means I am fat
I don't feel like adulting today; I am immature

When you allow one negative incident or feeling to define your real character, you indulge in emotional reasoning, which does not serve you.

The Fallacy of Fairness If you've taken this fallacy to heart, you are convinced that life revolves around fairness and justice. But, as the adage goes, "life isn't always fair."

Weighing and measuring the justice of every situation can leave you feeling bitter, depressed, or frustrated.

When you can step back and say, "Ugh; well that's disappointing. Now – what am I going to do about it?" you can take back our power and even out the playing field.

Seeing life as fair or unfair can place you squarely in victim mode. Instead, decide how you will respond to outcomes and use obstacles to create opportunities.

The Fallacy of Change Transformation and happiness often go hand in glove. For example, when you pursue personal development by joining the School of Self-Image, reading, journaling, engaging in yoga, doing a daily meditation or mindfulness practice, you change old thinking and adopt good habits and approach the world differently.

As a result, you experience personal growth and improved happiness.

Those who fall victim to the fallacy of change, on the other hand, focus on trying to make others change to support their happiness and often find that the result is not what they believed it would be.

If this is your cognitive distortion, you think you need to change others to be happy.

Just as you are not broken, you must remember that neither are they.

Let Go of Toxic Thinking and Embrace Thoughts That Serve You Your thoughts shape your reality, and when they're distorted, they can lead to a pretty unhappy life.

The good news is that you're not stuck with toxic thought patterns. Instead, you can become aware of them and change them.

Elevating your self-image will require that you create intentional thoughts every day.

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I love winning, and when I look around at my life, I do feel like I’m winning. The idea for this episode came up when I was looking back over my recent trip to Vegas. Now, I’ve never enjoyed Vegas before and the idea of gambling never appealed to me, but when I realized that when you approach the situation with a winning attitude, things started to change. And the good news here is the same is true in any area of your life.

Do you feel like you’re winning at life? If not, I want you to ask yourself why. I like to think of life as a game that we’re all playing. And if you want to win at this game of life, you must have a winning attitude.

Tune in this week to discover the secret to cultivating a winning attitude. I’m sharing why it’s so easy to get stuck in a loser’s mentality, and how to help yourself come around by uncovering what you want to work toward, and embodying the belief that you are a capable, amazing human, and you’re here to win.

What You Will Discover: * What it means to have a winning attitude. * Why you can’t win if you’re unwilling to get on the field and play the game. * The question I ask anyone who is in a state of complaining about their life. * How to discover the game that you actually want to play. * The level of belief it takes to truly see yourself as winning. * What you can do to cultivate a winning attitude as you pursue your extraordinary goals.

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Episode Transcript:

Do you feel like you’re winning at life? If not, I want you to ask yourself why. I believe that we all have the potential to win, but in order to do so, we have to develop and cultivate a winning attitude, which is what I’m talking about in today’s episode, inspired by my latest trip to Vegas. So, let’s dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here’s your hostess, master life coach Tonya Leigh.

Hello, gorgeous friends. What’s happening? I just got back from Vegas. I used to believe that I hated Vegas. But it turns out, Vegas is actually a lot of fun when you go with the right people. We went for my man’s birthday, and he had, I don’t know, like eight friends fly in. I had some of my friends there. We had so much fun.

And one of the things that I did that I’ve never done before is I gambled. As much as I love to play games, I’m not a gambler. But I was like, “You know what? I’m in Vegas. I’m going to try out this gambling thing.”

And I extracted a lot of lessons from my little adventure into gambling. I’m just laughing at myself right now, you all, because I never thought that I would be doing an episode related to gambling. And please don’t tell my mother that I’m recording this. She is very anti-gambling. I was raised that it was wrong, it was a sin.

And I get it. I do get how many people have had problems with gambling and I can see how that happens. But I trust myself. I don’t ever have to do it again, but it was fun. And it actually led to today’s episode about having a winning attitude.

I like to think of life as a game that we’re all playing. And if you want to win at this game of life, you must have a winning attitude. And when I look around at my life, I do feel like I’m winning.

And so, I was asking myself why and actually, my little trip to Vegas highlighted some of the points that showed me why I think I’m winning at life. And I want to share those with you. So, when we were in Vegas, I took out $1000 that I had said to myself, “I’m willing to lose this money. I’m not willing to lose anymore, but I’m willing to have fun and try this gambling thing out and see how it goes.”

I actually love winning, and I love games. But I’ve never gambled, so this was all new to me. And I’d never really played blackjack. Like, I understand the premise of it, like the goal is to get to 21 or to let the dealer bust. I get that. But I had never played with stakes.

So, early in the day, there was a group of us that decided we were going to go play some blackjack. And there were six of us around the table; my friend Brooke and my friend Aprille, and then some of Fonz’s friends. And Fonz was across the way doing his own thing because he takes it very seriously. Obviously, I don’t.

So, we’re sitting at this table having the time of our lives. We are laughing so hard and having so much fun that Fonz later told us that the people where he was, they were very intrigued with our table. They were like, “What is happening over there?”

And they all assumed we were winning because we were having so much fun. But they didn’t know that whole time we were losing, like every hand. We could not win. And there was a point where I was like, “Okay, I don’t want to lose all my money like this.” And I walked away. We all did.

We’d had our fun and then we ended up walking around. We went to dinner. And then, we went back later that night and we played in the high-stakes room. So, the high-stakes room, bigger bets. It’s way more posh. I do like the high-stakes room. It’s more luxurious, let’s say.

And so, at this point, it was just me and my friend Brooke and our friend Jeff and then Fonz was sitting there. And something happened. You can call it beginner’s luck. You can call it strategy. But I started winning. I could not lose a hand. And the chips are stacking up and I’m like, “What is happening? This is so much fun.”

And I was thinking about that situation as it relates to life. Like, how do you win at life? And it really comes down to a winning attitude. And so, here’s the first thing that I noticed. I had to get on the field. Meaning I had to show up and be willing to play this game.

A lot of you aren’t even on the field. I was actually talking to someone not too long ago and she was just complaining about life and how it’s not fair and how everybody seems to have all the luck. And she was just going in this spiral.

And I asked her, like, “What are you doing? What are you doing to make your life better?” She couldn’t name anything. She wasn’t even on the field and she’s complaining about not winning. So, for you, I want you to be thinking about, what is the game you want to play? And the best way to get the clearest answer on this is, “What is my extraordinary goal? What am I ready to go after?”

And be willing to be honest with yourself and make it extraordinary. If you want an extraordinary life, you're going to have to set extraordinary goals and do extraordinary things and feel the extraordinary discomfort that comes along with that. But that is the first thing that you have to do. You can’t have a winning attitude if you’re not on the field at least trying to win.

So, that’s the first one. The second one is, stop complaining. Winners don’t complain. And I see this so often. Instead of figuring out how to get better, instead of figuring out what your obstacles are and how you’re going to overcome them, people spend so much time just complaining about the obstacles, complaining about other people.

Sometimes, I even notice with my members, the ones that complain the least are the ones that are getting the better results. The ones that I see complaining, they’re the ones that are holding themselves back. And so, if you want to have a winning attitude, stop complaining, Turn your complaints into solutions. That’s why I love using the word, “And.”

Because I still find myself complaining. But I don’t stay stuck in it. And the best way to get unstuck is to add the word and after your complaint and force your brain to come up with the solution. So, that’s number two.

Number three, you have to believe you can win. And this is often the hardest, especially if you’ve had a lot of losses and you use those losses against yourself and you use those losses as evidence as to why you can’t win, you’re not believing that you can.

Like, I think about me at the casino. I lost earlier in the day. I lost like quite a bit of money. But I never made it mean that I couldn’t win. In fact, I believed that I was going to win. I was like, “One way or the other, I’m going to win here.” Which inspired me to show back up later that evening to play again and that’s where I won big.

So, you have to believe that you can win, and that really comes down to a choice. Now, if you look to your past and use that as evidence against yourself, you’ll never be able to cultivate that belief that you can win. But every single one of us right now can just choose to believe it, that you can win.

And why wouldn’t you? Some people say, “Well I might disappoint myself.” And so, you end up disappointing yourself by not even getting on the field and trying. I just always like to believe that I can win, and I will win.

Now, that leads me to the next one. You have to be willing to have some losses. You have to be willing to fail. I know that in order to win, I have to be willing to lose. It doesn’t mean I like it, but that is part of the game. Like, every team that goes out there to compete against another team, they know that there’s a possibility that they could lose. In fact, one of them will lose. But that doesn’t keep them from showing up and playing and trying to win.

But you have to be willing to fail. I think about the Michael Jordan quote where he says, “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” So good.

I tell my members all of the time, I’m like, “Listen, failure is the path to success.” But a lot of you don’t want to fail. And so, because of that, you never succeed. If you all knew the amount of failures that I have, you’d be like, “What?”

I think we should talk about our failures more. I’ve had plenty of failures. But those failures taught me so much. They grew me. Like, I think about even that day in the casino, that morning when I was losing, I was learning. I was learning the game. And I didn’t make that mean that I couldn’t win. I just used it as, like, “Oh this is teaching me how to get better. This is part of the path to success.”

The other thing that I did is I ask for help. I love that the dealers will help you. I’m like, “Should I double down on this?” And then my friend Brooke, she knows how to play all the games and she was telling me what to do. I was willing to ask for help, “What should I do here? Teach me.”

And they were al so patient and kind, trying to teach me when I should hit, when I shouldn’t, when I should double down. And had I not been willing to ask for help, if I had been too proud, I wouldn’t have ended up winning big like I did.

Winners know they need help. Winners know they need support. Winners know that they can’t do it alone. And that’s why it’s so important that you ask for help. And people love to help you. I don’t know why we’ve got this belief that it’s wrong to ask for help and we’re going to inconvenience people.

I love helping people when they ask me. It makes me feel good. And so, if I don’t ask other people for help, I’m denying them of feeling good and I’m denying myself of the support I need.

Winners know that it is not only okay to ask for help. It’s necessary. When we’re playing this game of life, we don’t get through it without help. No one. And if you try to get through it without help, you’re going to make yourself miserable and you’re going to slow down your process and you most likely won’t win. Because winners need help, and they know it. So, you have to be willing to ask for help.

The other thing is you never give up. Winners, they may lose, but they get up and they go at it again. They never give up. People ask me all of the time, like, “How do you keep going?” And it really is, I want to win at life. I want to look back at the end of my life and be like, “I won that.” I had a lot of losses along the way, but like Michael Jordan, I feel like a legend in my own little space, in my area, my niche.

I feel like I played that game so hard, and I was willing to take all of the losses so that I could have the wins. And the only way I could do that is to never give up.

Sometimes, women will say to me, like they’re in the dating world and after two bad dated they’re like, “I’m done. It’s not worth it.” I’m like, that is not a winning attitude. The gal that wins her man, she doesn’t give up that quickly. She’s willing to go on 100 bad dates to win at that final one.

But a lot of you don’t have that attitude. You’re giving up way too soon. I see this in business too. Women will put a new product or a new service out into the world and it doesn’t go the way they wanted it to go. And they use that as a reason to give up. I’m like, “No, that’s a reason to keep going. You’re just getting warmed up. This is part of the process. Don’t give up now. Don’t make that mean that you should quit. Make that mean that you need to keep going because you haven’t gotten the result that you want to get yet.”

Never give up on something that is tugging at your soul, that you can’t stop thinking about. Keep going. I think about me, had I stopped the moment I was losing, I wouldn’t have won. And that’s not an excuse for us all to go to the casino and just keep losing money, just so you know. I’m trying to pull out a bigger philosophical lesson in my gambling adventure. But there’s so much truth to it.

The other thing too is, surround yourself with winners. Surround yourself with people that have a winning attitude, that are winning at their lives. Because you’re going to learn so much from them. And just being in their presence will inspire you to keep going. It will inspire you to win at your own life.

If you surround yourself with losers – and when I say losers, I think none of us are losers. But I do think some of us can have that loser mentality, like, “Woe is me. Life is hard. Life is bad.” And that attitude keeps them from winning. And I want you to win.

And so, in order to get a winning attitude, it’s important to surround yourself with people who are winners, who have that same kind of attitude. There is something magical that happens when you surround yourself with people who have big goals, who are committed, who are relentless, who are excited about their futures, who are positive.

All of that energy, you start to take on by default, which is why one of the core things that I teach about within the School of Self-Image is the importance of your surroundings. We don’t have to depend on mindset alone.

Of course, at the end of the day, it’s always our mindset. It’s always our attitude. But a lot of times, we’re trying to do this work in environments that make it so much harder.

Winners don’t do that. They want to win. And they’re not going to put themselves sin environments that slow them down and that make it harder for them to win at the game that they’re playing. It’s why teams practice together. They all have that passion. They all have that vision. They all have that desire to win. And that becomes contagious. So, surround yourself with winners.

The other thing that I want us all to be doing, if we want to have a winning attitude, is we need to focus on how you’re already winning. A lot of you all are focusing on how you think you’re losing. But what you focus on grows.

I am convinced that one of the reasons why I think I’m winning at life is because I choose to believe that. And because I choose to believe that every day, I’m focusing on how I’m winning. And it might be something as simple as waking up and the sun came up. I didn’t have to make it happen. I’m like, that’s a win.

It might be just getting through a day, and instead of making it mean that I’m a loser and I should have done more, I’m like, that’s a win. I categorize as many wins a day as possible. I celebrate life. I appreciate life so hard. And it’s the little things that I’m appreciating the most, the little wins that a lot of you discount and don’t give enough credit to. You take it for granted.

Look at how you’re already winning. And when you do that, you’re going to notice, there are so many ways in which you’re winning at life right now, but you’re focused on how you’re losing. And because you’re focused on that, that’s all you can see.

Winners understand the power of a vision, thinking from their future, and the power of a thought, which is why they’re very, very selective on what they choose to focus on and what they choose to think.

So, if you want to have a winning attitude, write down a list, as soon as you finish this podcast, write down a list of all of the ways that you are winning in your life right now, and delight yourself on how you’re already a winner.

And then, the last one that I’m going to share with you is one of my secrets to having a winning attitude and winning at life. And that is, want everyone to win.

When we were sitting at that table, I wanted everyone to win but the house. I wanted every single one of us to win. I wasn’t thinking, “If I win, they’re going to lose.” I wasn’t thinking, “They’re going to take something from me.” I genuinely wanted everyone to win, except the house.

And I was thinking later about, what is that metaphor? Who is the house in our life that we don’t want to win? And it’s that part of ourselves that tells us it’s not possible, that doubts us. That’s our house. We want that to lose every single time. But I genuinely want every single one of us to win.

Even when I have someone who is nasty to me, who makes some snarky comment, I really want that person to win because I knew, if they were winning, they would be a completely different person.

Winners don’t spend time criticizing other people. Winners don’t waste their time putting other people down. And so, by everyone winning, we would be such a happier, more peaceful world, which is why I genuinely want every single person to win.

In fact, when we were playing, there were a couple of times earlier in the day where I won a few hands and everybody else was losing. And I just took my chips and handed it to them. I’m like, “Come on, let’s keep going.” Because I really feel like we’re a collective. And the more I win, the more you’re going to win.

I do believe in the saying, all ships rise with the tide. I want to live in this place of abundance and love and excitement for life. And that cannot coexist with wanting other people to lose. It can’t exist with being afraid to lose. It can’t exist by thinking you’re a loser.

And for this reason, I just genuinely want us all to win. And in order to do that, my friends, we’ve got to develop a winning attitude. You’ve got to get on the field. You’ve got to stop complaining. You must believe that you can win. You have to ask for help. You have to be willing to lose.

Never give up. Surround yourself with winners. Focus on how you’re already winning. And then, want everybody else to win. That is the secret, my friends, to a winning attitude. Have a great day, everyone and I will see you in next week’s episode.

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When women join us in the School of Self-Image, one of the first things they do is set an extraordinary goal. Because our heads tend to immediately get busy with the how of it all, staying on track is something many women automatically begin to wonder about.

The purpose of setting an extraordinary goal is to grow you and transform how you see yourself. Therefore, I always ask women to select a dream that will challenge them - one that even scares them a little.

We do this because I can't think of a better way to create a great mindset.

So, what is an extraordinary goal anyway?

I define an extraordinary goal as remarkable, out of the ordinary, or unusual. It's a goal that will grow you and challenge how you see yourself.

It's also a goal that will transform your self-image just because you tried, even if that particular goal remains unachieved.

Extraordinary goals may feel impossible. Nevertheless, I can promise you that they are always doable if you adjust your mindset, take it one measured step at a time, and stay on track. When you do you’ll achieve the little things that will add up to the big, extraordinary success you are after.

What Does It Mean to Stay on Track? You can achieve your goals by setting mile markers. Accomplishing smaller tasks will motivate you to complete your journey as you see how far you're getting each day.

Big audacious goals will seem far less intimidating when broken down into smaller stepping stones.

Achieving the "little things" will help you stay on track to achieve your big spectacular goals.

The following are five the things you can do to stay on track.

Make It Fun Regardless of your goal, the single most essential strategy you can engage in is to make it fun. After all, if it's not fun, then why are we doing it?

Perhaps your goal is around weight loss.

Going on a strict diet and counting calories or starving yourself is not fun - it's also not sustainable. Likewise, suiting up to show up at the gym where you feel conspicuous or on display (not in a good way) usually feels stressful and uncomfortable. Finally, engaging in punishing workouts that leave you feeling exhausted and bored is usually an excellent way to waste money but doesn't generally meet sustainable weight loss goals.

Instead, try creating new, delightful, healthy recipes and doing activities that light you up-- these things will make lifestyle changes that will feel natural, easy, and fun.

You could try challenging yourself to come up with easy, wholesome meals that don't leave you feeling stretched for time or deprived.

You might get moving by dancing, doing yoga, hiking, or playing outdoors with the littles in your life.

Injecting fun into your daily activity - no matter what it is - leads to success!

Make It SMART If you’ve heard this before, I don’t mean to bore you - but SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely.

Suppose you're dreaming of creating a successful business. You wouldn't start by hiring a massive sales team. Doing so might be specific and achievable – But timely? Measurable? Realistic?

Even if you have the most wonderful product or service imaginable, what would your sales team sell if no one knew about it?

Hiring a sales team first would render your goal unrealistic, untimely, and unmeasurable.

With every tiny step that leads to your extraordinary goal, ask yourself: Is this a SMART approach?

Celebrate Your Wins Taking note of how far you've come can be a significant motivator toward whatever you're aiming to accomplish as you stay on track toward your goals.

Therefore, an essential element to staying on track is having a sense of accomplishment and celebration.

Once you start building your success chain, don't neglect to celebrate - each step that you accomplish towards your vision deserves recognition and celebration.

And, it's so much more than that.

It's also about hacking your brain's reward system. The regions of your brain that make up the "reward system" use the neurotransmitter dopamine to communicate reward signals. Dopamine-producing neurons feel good, thus motivating us to keep going to obtain the goals we've set for ourselves.

Most women don't count the little things - we save our celebrations for when we meet that end goal. However, being more productive requires feeling more effective - when we take time every day to celebrate how far we've come, we get filled afresh with motivational enthusiasm.

Create a Reward System I love rewards - who doesn't?

Rewards for staying on track can be minor or significant.

That sparkling light shower your iWatch performs when you close an exercise ring each day is a little reward that encourages you to keep going. Likewise, crossing items off your list can feel incredibly rewarding despite how minor the act is.

Sending yourself flowers, enjoying a celebratory dinner, or buying yourself something nice for a week well done are a few great ways to create a more robust and impactful feeling of reward.

These rewards will keep you going because they remind you how fun it is to stay on track and make you want to keep going.

Stay Accountable Whether you join a membership program like the School of Self-Image, hire a one-on-one life or business coach, or make an accountability buddy agreement with your sister or BFF, staying accountable is a great way to stay on track.

Sometimes, self-motivation can only get you so far. Inviting someone else into the process can help you keep track of your accomplishments and hold you accountable when you blow off your commitments to yourself.

When you stay accountable to someone else (a group or one person), you'll be less likely to make excuses that can derail your progress.

Staying on Track Will Get You Where You Want to Be Staying on track toward reaching your goals can be tricky, but it can be made more accessible by incorporating a few simple tools and strategies.

Find which one works best for you and your goals, and see where it takes you. Then, you may find that your dreams start taking care of themselves!

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Today is a special day because I get to talk about two of my favorite things: business and self-image. Now, I don’t talk about my business much on the podcast, but I love talking about it everywhere else. So, on this episode, I’m taking you on the journey of my business image evolution.

I know I’ve got a lot of business ladies in the audience, and so, today’s episode is for you. However, if you are not in business, there is so much personal growth available when you can look at all of your roles in life through the lens of business, so this episode truly is for every single person out there listening.

Tune in this week as I walk you through my business image evolution over the years. I’m taking you behind the scenes on my business’s journey, showing you how every time I’ve expanded my self-image, my business has been transformed to accommodate my vision, and how you can create the same exponential growth in your life, whether you’re in business or not.

What You Will Discover: * Why, even if you’re not an entrepreneur, I want you to see yourself as a businesswoman in your life. * How to see the dialogue you have currently around what’s possible for you as a businesswoman. * Why expanding your business image matters more than your marketing strategy and sales tactics. * How to start positioning yourself as the best in the world at what you do. * The different evolutions and iterations of my business over the years. * Why each evolution allowed me to connect with more women and serve them on a deeper level. * How to use your business as an opportunity to express your highest self to the world and attract people that align with your business image.

Featured on the Show: * Download the Self-Image Manifesto and be the first to hear about amazing developments in our community! * Learn more about The School of Self-Image and join today! * Applications are now OPEN for my Business Image Mastermind! Click the link to apply. * Wayback Machine Internet Archive * Love the show? Leave a review of the show in Apple Podcasts (click the link to find out how). * Follow me on Instagram! * Find me on Facebook!

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Episode Transcript:

Today is a special day because I am choosing to talk about something that I rarely talk about on this podcast. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever had an episode dedicated to business. But behind the scenes, I’m always talking about business. I love talking about business. And I especially love talking about your business image. So, in this episode, I’m taking you behind the scenes of my own evolution of my business image, so let’s dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here’s your hostess, master life coach Tonya Leigh.

Well hello, gorgeous friends. How are you doing? How are you feeling? What’s happening? I am excited because, in this episode, I am talking about something that I’ve never really solely addressed on this podcast, which is business.

I know I’ve got a lot of business ladies in the audience. And so, today’s episode is for you. However, if you are not in business, I still want you to listen because what I’m going to be sharing is applicable to you as well.

I get to talk today about two of my favorite things to talk about. And that is business combined with self-image. And I refer to this as your business image. So, for those of you who don’t have a business, I still want you to see yourself as a businesswoman in your life. Maybe it’s within your home as a homemaker. Maybe it’s you in the community as a volunteer. It’s still applicable to you.

I’m also going to be sharing something that I have been working on behind the scenes that is so good, it is so unique, and it is so needed. So, stick around for that because that will come towards the end, I think. Or maybe not. It might pop up in the middle.

But I just want to share with you all my own business image evolution. And for some of you, you have witnessed it. You have been with me since the very beginning. You say baby business Tonya and now you see the grownup business Tonya. And I’m still growing.

I feel like I’m in my 30s in business, so I’ve still got a lot of years ahead of my own business image evolution. But I want to start out wit, first of all, talking about what is your business image? And there are two parts to this. So, I like to call it your inner business image and your outer business image.

So, the inner image of yourself as a businesswoman consists of how you see yourself, your thoughts about yourself as it relates to business. So, pay attention, for those of you who are in business, what is the dialogue that you have in your own head about your capabilities, about what’s possible for you? Because that’s shaping your inner business image and how you see yourself.

But then there’s the outer business image. And the outer business image is how the world sees you and what the world believes about you. And you have a direct influence on what that is. And yet, do you spend a lot of time curating that on purpose? Are you telling yourself and telling the world how you want to be seen and what you want to be thought of? That is within your control.

And while it’s nice to have strategy and good marketing and sales tactics, nothing will advance your business as much as expanding your business image. And I say that with the most confidence. It’s like a 100% money-back guarantee on that. And the reason why I know this is because of my own journey.

So, I want to take you on my business journey and share with you how my own business image has evolved over the years. So, I’m going to take us back to before I even started my business, when I was working as a critical care nurse and I was also starting to explore this other side of me that I was being drawn to step into, the parts of me that you all see today. It’s the part of me that loves style, that loves life, that enjoys food and wine.

So, I was in that awkward in between of leaving an old identity and really becoming someone new. And it was during that phase that I really started to understand the importance of image.

Now, when I talk about self-image, I’m talking about how you see yourself, how you think about yourself. But when I talk about image without the self, I’m referring to what other people see. And it matters, especially if you are in business.

Most likely, unless you have found this miracle little niche that no one else is doing what you’re doing, you have many other people that are offering the same service as you. And while you may be able to get people amazing results, initially, people are buying you. They’re buying what you represent. They’re buying into your values, the energy that you put out there.

Which is why some people – let’s just take my industry, for example. Some people are drawn to me and not someone else. However, the other woman is drawn to one of my friends who coaches and not me. And it’s because we have a very clear business image.

You think about, let’s just say weight loss, for example. There are a lot of weight loss coaches out there and they all can help you get results if you want to lose weight. However if you are seeking a more feminine, pleasurable, and less strict approach to weight loss, you’re not going to be drawn to the woman who has a very bold business image of being in your face, holding you accountable. She’s going to attract a very different woman.

So, in creating and building your business image, you have to decide who you want to be and how you want to be known and what you want people to think about you. So, back to my journey.

Early on, I understood that image was important because, as I was changing my image, I was starting to figure out my own personal style. I was starting to carry myself differently. I even started to speak differently. I completely transformed my accent.

My friend Melissa was over last night. She was like, “That still blows my mind that you did that.” But I did. If I can do anything, I know what it takes to change your identity because I have done it several times in my life.

However, it was during that period that I was like, “Wow, this image thing is really powerful.” People started to treat me differently. And one of the examples that I’ve often told my clients is, I remember when I was going to sommelier school. And I started to talk about my love of wine when I was out in company with other people at social gatherings.

And all of a sudden, over time, in a matter of months, I noticed when we would go out to dinner, everyone would just automatically hand me the wine list. It’s like I had created this image of myself as someone who is knowledgeable of wines. And all of a sudden, it is being reflected back to me. Even to this day, I am the one that gets the wine list. And I like that because I feel like I always pick out really good wines.

However, that was my starting to understand, wow, what we say about ourselves to other people, how we show up, all of this impacts how the world sees us and how the world interprets us and how the world treats us.

And this is so important in business because you can begin to position yourself in your market as the best in the world at what you do and figuring out what makes you iconic, and boldly and unapologetically standing in that energy.

But it took me a little while when I started business. No, one thing that I will say, early on – and I feel like this was an advantage, was because I had done all of this personal work and I knew the power of image, and I also understood what I was drawn to. My very first website, I really invested in it.

Now, if I go back and look at pictures of it, it’s like, “Oh, that was sweet. That was cute, Tonya. You were really trying,” because I’ve grown so much since then. But I’m really proud of myself that really put some thought into, how do I want to be perceived? Who am I trying to attract? Who are my ideal clients?

So, my very first business was called Just B Living, and that’s with just a B, just the letter. And I hired a videographer and a photographer. And I’ll never forget, my color palette was, like this plum purple and like a beige. And the photographs were very, sort of vintage-looking, a little old-world.

And there was even, I remember, an image of me on a bicycle. I was trying to capture that French essence of just be, just enjoy life, just love where you are, right? But at the same time, there were so many areas within my business where I felt out of alignment. Mostly with my content and my program and my offerings.

And this is very normal, you all. So, for any of you that are just starting out, I want you to give yourself permission to play around. It’s like finding your signature style. You need to go in. you need to try on a lot of different outfits. You need to see how they feel on you.

But this was a stage where I was looking around a lot. I was looking at what other people were doing. I was trying to figure out what kind of packages to put together. And my very first program that I offered to the world was called Health, Happiness, and Baggy Jeans. So cute, right?

But I wanted to work with women around weight loss because that was the one problem that I knew I could help solve. I felt very good in my ability to serve women and add value to their lives through the lens of how I lost weight.

So, that was my very first offering. But this was a time, when it comes to my business image, the way I saw myself, I was very unsure. I didn’t have a lot of evidence yet that I could do this. so, my work at this level was just to practice believing, keep showing up, keep taking action, and then always paying attention to when I felt lit up and when I felt heavy within my business.

And whenever I was looking around, I always felt heavy. Whenever I would try to copy something that somebody else had done, because I was like, “Well, if it worked for them, I’m going to try it too,” and mostly I’m talking about strategies, I always try to be original, but there’s really nothing original in the world, especially within personal development. It’s all leading to us being the best versions of ourselves and there are some basic laws that govern that, that we’re all teaching, but we’re all doing it in our own unique way.

But back then, I was trying to figure out what that was for me. And so, I felt very out of alignment. And business is not fun, you all, when you feel out of alignment. But I also equally was excited about figuring it out. And so, it wasn’t so detrimental that I gave up, as you can see. I’m still here doing it.

But it wasn’t as fun, so I thought, “Okay, next evolution is I’m going to switch from Just B Living and I’m going to step into my name, tonyaleigh.com. And this was when I actually feel like I regressed in terms of my web presence.

The website was not good. I was trying to get to a more sleek, modern look. And so, I remember, that website – and some of you, you might be able to go on the Wayback Machine and see this. I feel like you need to see it for yourself. But Wayback Machine is where you can go back and look at websites from back in the day.

But this particular website, I decided to go with this color palette that I would never in a million years use today. Some of you y’all remember it, I bet. It was like this deep red and like a teal blue. And it had my name in all caps, TONY LEIGH at the top. And I had this little French girl sitting on the O with, like, a beret on her head. She had blonde hair. And then my picture was off to the side.

But this was when I started to align more with my message. I stopped with the generic how to be happy kind of talk and I started to infuse my business and my content with my passions, which were travel and food and wine and France, and most notably Paris.

And this was a very interesting shift because I felt like I was moving away from the mainstream and I was starting to position myself as this bon vivant, someone who loves life, someone who enjoys good food and good wine and pleasure and all of the things that had really been a part of my own evolution.

And I started to own that space unapologetically. And the result of that was that I started to attract women into my circle who were like, “Yeah, me too. I want to learn from her because that’s the kind of life that I want to live.”

And so, I stayed with that brand – gosh, I should go back and actually do a timeline, but I want to say probably four years, maybe, maybe less. When it comes to time, you all, it all runs together. But I had that for a while. And this was when I started to do retreats and I started to run retreats in Paris.

And at the time, no one else that I knew of was doing international personal development retreats. And this is really important when it comes to your business image. You have to be willing to do things that have never been done before. You have to be willing to make bold statements. You have to be willing to show up boldly to have a bold business.

And this was the era of my business when that started to happen. And I remember when I was going through this process of allowing myself to tap into my genius and to what makes me stand out in my own unique way, it was scary. I had all the thoughts. What if people don’t like it? What if people judge me as superficial or vain because I like to talk about beauty and style and travel? And I want to talk about personal development and having goals while also talking about enjoying the journey.

But I did it. and I started to share it. And inside, my inner business image at this time was still on shaky ground. Not only was I putting myself out into the world in a bigger way. I was also learning how to be a businesswoman. And the tendency to want to be overwhelmed, the tendency to look around at what is instead of what is becoming was still there.

Now, I’ve practiced it so much I understand the psychology that goes into building a successful business. And I don’t get freaked out as much anymore. But this was the – I like to call it the awkward in between of my business becoming. And it was amazing because I was creating and being playful and it was also terrifying and scary because, as I said earlier, I was standing out in my own uniqueness, my own genius. And my business was growing. And that is what happens, my friends, when you focus on expanding your business image.

Now, we enter into a very interesting part of my journey, and it’s one that many of you entered into. And that is when I decided that I didn’t want it to be my name. I had played in that arena for a while and I was like, I want to build something bigger than my name. I want to create a movement. I want to create a community.

And French Kiss Life was born. And that’s when my company really started to take off. The term French Kiss Life means so much to me. And sorry to bore those of you who’ve heard this story before. But some of you don’t know this story, so I’ll tell you how it came to be.

When I went to Paris for the very first time, I was a hot mess. I was overwhelmed. I was struggling with my weight. I felt really lost in life. And being in that city for a week, just being in that energy, being in that environment gave me sort of like a beacon to guide me. I wanted to go after the feeling that I had there.

And on my very last day there, I was walking through Luxembourg Gardens and I was looking around and I was looking at mothers having picnics with their kids, lovers kissing, people sitting by the fountain reading books. And I just said to myself, “These people are French Kissing Life.” And that term is what got me on this journey of what was possible and for how I wanted to my life to feel and to look.

And this was before I even started coaching. And so, when I decided to move away from my brand of Tonya Leigh, French Kiss Life was very obvious to me. I was like, “This is it.”

Now, let’s face it. It’s a very intriguing name. And it immediately draws some people in. And for many people, it turned them off. Some people thought it was a porn site. They’re like, “What is this?” However, the people that got it, we were such a match. They wanted what I had wanted all those years and had been able to create in my life, which was this feeling of luxurious ease, while also being ambitious.

It was showing up stylish. It was showing up with a sense of joie de vivre. And that’s what I was teaching. And this is when I developed my signature program Slim, Chic, and Savvy. And that was the main program that I had for many, many years. And I loved French Kiss Life, and I still do.

I am so grateful for that version of my business and all that I learned within it. However, when it comes to business image, I started to notice something. And this is where the story gets very interesting.

I feel like, when I started French Kiss Life, I would say I was like a 16-year-old in business. I was in that stage, like teens. It’s exciting. I’m trying out new things. I’m dreaming. And French Kiss Life was perfect for that stage of my business.

But behind the scenes, I was growing as a woman. I was becoming more confident. I was becoming more opinionated. I was becoming more unapologetic. And in many ways, I feel like I was becoming more sophisticated.

And one day, I remember someone asked me the name of my company, and I said it, and it did not feel right. It did not feel like it represented who I had become. I felt like I had outgrown French Kiss Life.

And this is a painful place to be in. It’s like outgrowing a relationship that you loved and served you, but you look over at the person one day and you’re like, “Wow, we’re in two totally different places. And if I’m going to make this work, I’m going to have to sacrifice a part of myself.” And that’s what it felt like with French Kiss Life.

And I was so grateful for her. I call her, “Her.” She’s my girl business. But I was just so grateful for her and who I became in the process of really focusing on creating a brand. And this is a really interesting place that we often find ourselves in when we’re in business.

We sometimes are in a place of you’ve created this external great image of your business, and on the inside you’re working on becoming it, aligning with it, matching with it. And then, there’s the opposite of where you’ve created a business and you’ve grown so much, you look at your business and it no longer represents who you’ve become.

So, when I think about my very first website, I put this beautiful website out into the world and, on the inside, my internal business image was not there yet. And so, the work was to practice being there, being the woman that was running Just B Living with a lot of confidence.

But this situation was different. I had grown so much and now I look around at my business and it no longer represents my business image and what I want to express to the world. And this was one of the hardest and most amazing years of my life.

This was during the pandemic. This was also the year that I left a long-term relationship. There was a lot of letting go and becoming in that year. And one of the things that I had to get really honest with myself about was, do I see myself having French Kiss Life in five years? And my answer was no.

I was ready to create something that represented the woman I had become. And I thought about other brands. If you think about Gucci or Prada or Anthropologie, like any brand, you will notice their own image evolution.

And so, I spent a lot of time thinking, “Do I just need to stay with French Kiss Life and really rebrand it and think about it differently?” But I could not see myself investing five more years in that brand. I felt like it was complete.

It was a beautiful chapter in my business book that was complete. However, I must tell you all, the hardest thing to let go of is not something that is bad. It’s something that is good and it’s working.

I was doing really well in French Kiss Life. My community, awesome. And so many of them have continued with me. But some of them left. Some of them were really upset. And that’s part of expanding your business image. You have to understand that not everyone around you is going to like it and you have to make peace with that.

But you also have to think about your future clients and who you’re going to attract that now is a better match for who you’ve become. And so, that’s when School of Self-Image entered into the picture, in October of 2020.

I spent the early part of 2020 dreaming about what was next in terms of my business and it became so obvious to me that the work that I had done, that has changed my life, was all around my self-image. And I didn’t know of anyone else teaching self-image.

And I knew, I had hit on something that was life-changing and transformative and embodied the fullness of who I had become, where I could talk about style and the importance of what you wear and how you show up. I could talk about the importance of your surroundings, the places you go, the people you hang out with. And I could talk about the thing I love to talk about the most; your mindset.

And it all came together. And now, I can say, for the first time – the last two years have been business bliss for me. And it’s not because we haven’t had issues behind the scenes, because every business has issues. It’s not because it’s always been easy. But it has felt aligned. And it has taken me 10 years to get to that place where I feel 100% aligned with my business. And that is the goal.

And doing the work around your business image is to align your inside and who you want to be with what the world sees, so that when you talk about your business, when you show up and represent your business, it feels good, it feels exciting, and you know that you are in flow with the business that you were meant to create and to put into the world.

And what’s really interesting about this whole process is, in October of 2020, I started to experience quantum leaps in my business growth. Whereas before, it was just like chugging along with my revenue, with my team. It was just like, a little bit better, a little bit better, a little bit better.

But in October of 2020, things took off and I am 100% convinced that it’s because of me doing this work on my business image, getting very clear about my work, ow I want to be seen in the world, what I want people to think about me and the company, reverse-engineering all of that to create an extraordinary business that truly fits the woman I’ve become.

This is the most important work you will ever do as a businesswoman. You know, the tendency is to want to go find the next business book, the next business secret, the next formula. But if you want to create a business that feels fully aligned and that represents you in the most extraordinary way, that is not going to be found in someone else’s formula.

Sure, you can get inspiration from people. There are certain rules of success that are applicable to everyone, but the expression of that, how you do your business, how you show up in the world, your values, how you interact with your clients, with your students, with your customers, that needs to be very intentional.

And when it is, everything else becomes so much easier. Your marketing becomes easier. Your programs, your services become easier. You’ll know how to price things and you will begin to attract your ideal clients. You don’t want to attract everyone. I know some of you all think you do, but you don’t, trust me.

When I was in my early stages of business, I thought I wanted to attract everyone, until I started to attract people that we just weren’t a good fit. And it made business not fun.

You want to attract people that are in alignment with your business image. And you want to repel the ones that aren’t. There are enough to go around. We are a society, a world that’s always looking for services and products and things to help us make our lives better.

And when we get into that lack mentality, we start to get very clingy. We start to get very desperate. And we start to become mainstream and dampen our message out of fear. What I want for you is to get into a place of abundance and confidence and, “Who is she? What is she saying? Who is she serving? How is she showing up?” And let’s shape her business image to be a match for the business that she wants.

So, I told you all at the very beginning that I had something exciting to share. For two years – has it been two years? Almost two years – I’ve just focused on my membership, which I love. For those of you who are not in business and you want to do this work for yourself, come and join us within the School of Self-Image membership.

But for those of you who are in business, I am so excited to tell you about what I have been working on. And I thought a long time about this. And at one point, I was going to put together a program. But it didn’t feel right for me in this moment.

Because I was thinking to myself, “You don’t need another program. You don’t need another formula. What you need is to transform your business image.” And I want to do that in a very intimate way with a handful of women.

I want to get in the room with you, mentor you, work with you, coach you to help you stand out, to help you make more money, and to help you do business in your own unique way so that business is fun and exciting and not overwhelming and dragging you down.

And that’s why I am excited to announce that we are opening enrolment to the Business Image Mastermind. Women have been asking me for years to do something around business. And I’ve also had many women ask me for a mastermind.

But the reason why I chose a mastermind is because I did a lot of journaling when I was thinking about what this next offer was going to be and I just wrote down my business journey and really was looking for, what has had the biggest impact on my business?

Now, granted, all of the little things that I’ve done have added up because all the little things count, right? One thing I read in a book that I applied that changed things, or listening to one podcast and getting an idea. Those things have had an impact.

But the two biggest things that have impacted my business the most is, number one, focusing on my business image, getting that aligned and clear and feeling like the best representation of myself. And then the other is being a part of a mastermind.

I noticed, when I looked back over my business journey, the years I’ve been in a mastermind have been my best years in business. And they’ve also been my hardest because of who I had to become.

A mastermind, if it’s a good one, is going to expect a lot of you. It’s going to require that you bring out the best parts of you. It’s going to require that you do hard things. And that is uncomfortable. Which is why a mastermind isn’t for everyone. But if you are interested in growing your business, a mastermind, I think, is one of the best investments you will ever make in your business, and in yourself. Because your business can only grow to the extent that you’re growing.

I mean, you can put a big business out into the world. But if you don’t grow into it, you will sabotage yourself. And likewise, you can grow so big that your business hasn’t kept up. And so, this work is about constantly aligning your business with who you are becoming and who you want to be in the world.

I know that some of you may not be familiar with a mastermind, so let me just explain to you what it is. Because even if you don’t join mine, I want you to keep it in the back of your mind that this may be what you need to support you in your own growth.

So, a mastermind is a group of people who come together with the same intention. And there are masterminds for many different things. There are masterminds around fitness. There are masterminds around marketing. There are masterminds around finance. You can find a mastermind for just about anything.

And the reason why they’re so powerful is that when you’re in a community that all are after the same thing and you all are committed to supporting each other and you all are bringing diverse ideas and tools and strategies to the table, magic happens.

In fact, it was within a mastermind that I decided to change my company to School of Self-Image. And those women were there to support me when I was freaking out, which I did, and to constantly encourage and offer feedback and support and coaching.

Having that level of support, I think, is necessary for women in business. Because depending on your business, for a lot of us, we’re at home working alone. We don’t have a network. We’re just getting through day to day, trying to serve our customers and also taking care of our families. Being able to step away and think on your business, think on yourself instead of being in it is a beautiful thing.

And then, to do that within a group who’s there to support you, I’m telling you, it’s magic. But the best benefit of being in a mastermind is not only do you end up meeting some of your best friends ever. But you will think bigger than you have ever thought.

If it’s a good mastermind, you will be challenged to think in ways you’ve never thought before. And if you’ve been listening to this podcast, you know how you think is determining your entire life. And it’s determining the results that you’re getting in your business.

So the purpose of this mastermind is to expand your business image to allow for more clarity, more money, more confidence, and we’re going to have fun. Because I have this belief in business and in life. If it’s not fun, what are we doing? We’re doing it wrong.

And so, if you are interested in joining us, you can head to businessimagemastermind.com and you can fill out the application. This is going to be a small group of extraordinary women. I cannot wait. And we are going to kick it off in May in Denver for a three-day intensive workshop.

So, you’re going to be coming to Denver and hanging out with me. And I’m going to get all up in your business. Because that’s the purpose. You want feedback. You want support. And so, I am thrilled and beyond excited for the 30 women that I get to spend this time with.

So, if you are interested in being one of those women, head over to buisnessimagemastermind.com. All of the information is there. Fill out the application, and who knows, I might get to see you in Denver really soon, where we’re going to work on expanding your business image.

This has been so much fun, sharing my business image journey with you. I hope you enjoyed it, and I can’t wait to see you in next week’s episode. Cheers.

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Luck is a result of how we choose to look at and move through our lives.

Lucky people recognize their good fortune and look at life through that lens. Luck is not something that just happens - it's something you seek out.

Richard Wiseman, the author of The Luck Factor, has done extensive research on "luck" and its role in the lives of successful, happy people.

In his research, he talks about techniques to increase well-being and happiness, improve relationships, boost productivity, and bolster success.

The aspect of his work most familiar involved a decade-long project that identified the principles "lucky people" utilize to create their fortune.

He found four main identifiers:

Fortunate folks are exceptionally skilled at creating, noticing, and acting upon chance opportunities. They do this in various ways, including networking, maintaining a relaxed attitude to life, and remaining open to new experiences.

Lucky people trust their gut which enables them to make effective decisions. Additionally, they practice habits designed to boost their intuitive abilities, such as meditation and journaling to clear their minds.

The lucky ones simply expect good fortune. They put energy into the certainty that things will turn out in the best way to serve them. But, because they persist in the face of failure, these expectations often become self-fulfilling prophecies.

Fortunate people turn bad luck into good by not dwelling on things that don't go well, finding opportunities in obstacles, and taking control of situations.

Luck isn't something some women just have and others don't. When we can get clear on our thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and actions, we can get some control over how luck shows up in our lives.

It's not just about positive thinking. It's also about positive action.

Luck Is Not Just a Silly Superstition If a fantastic opportunity drops into your lap, is that always luck? Or could it be the result of the impression you once left on someone who, in turn, later turned a new opportunity in your direction?

Often situations that we think of as good luck turn out to be more to do with actions and attitudes we've taken in life.

Just for a moment, let go of the idea of "the luck of the Irish" and explore what lucky women do in their lives.

Lucky Girls Take Initiative As they say, fortune favors the bold. So you can increase your chances of winning by simply showing up. Go out there and make things happen, don’t just sit by and wait for life to happen to you - make it happen for you.

When we put ourselves out there, we welcome chance into our lives.

This will allow you to explore and gain new insights, see things from a different perspective or meet opportunities you might not otherwise meet.

The Fortunate Are Focused If you’re anything like me, you find so many things interesting and can quickly become distracted when something grabs your attention. This is especially true for the entrepreneurs among us.

The way to create more success is to focus on what's most important- that's why I always encourage the women who join us in School of Self-Image to pick just ONE extraordinary goal and focus on that at first.

Focusing your energy funnels your efforts into the activities most likely to deliver success, brining you more “luck.”

Lucky Ladies Keep Learning Never stop learning and growing intellectually. When you do, you increase the odds that you'll be ready when an opportunity knocks on your door. Thus armed, you’ll be able to take on whatever comes your way, turning opportunities into good fortune.

Don't let yourself get stuck. If you eschew experiencing new things, you're going to feel bored and stifled. So instead, be open to new things. Be curious about the world around you.

The Lucky Craft Their Stories With That Pot Of Gold At Center The way you tell your stories (whether for yourself or others) impacts everything about your relationships, the way you see yourself, and the things you have your eyes open for.

Keeping a journal of the good things that happen in your life helps open you.

We tend to hold on to the bad and forget about the good. When we remember and celebrate all the good that has happened in our lives, we can see the evidence of fortune, which opens our mind to see more of the same when it presents.

Dame Fortune Imagines Her Pathway Toward Success The fortunate visualize success and plan for it. Think about your goals every day.

What does success look like? What steps will you take to get there? Again, seeing each detail in high resolution is essential.

Imaging good fortune helps you get there. For example, if you are preparing for an important or a big event, visualize your calm demeanor and your clear, thoughtful responses as you prepare.

If you have a big, beautiful, audacious goal on your horizon, visualize your path to success. See yourself where you want to be in a month, six months, or a year from now and act as if you're already there today.

Creating Your Own Luck is About So Much More Than Chance "Good luck is another name for tenacity of purpose." -Ralph Waldo Emerson.

The best thing about luck and good fortune is that it comes from self-manifestation.

You can always be creative in your life and take action to build upon what you have.

When you open yourself to new places, practice gratitude, show up, keep learning, take initiative, and step outside your comfort zone, you may just find yourself getting pretty darned lucky.

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When life is hard, one of the last things that we want to do is put on a brave face and show up anyway. And yet, life still goes on and we have responsibilities, goals, and dreams that we envision for ourselves. So, how do we show up while still honoring how difficult life is right now?

With the state of the world at the moment, it’s no surprise if you’re feeling all the feelings. It’s like we move through one crisis, and another is waiting around the corner. So, if you’re experiencing a lot of anxiety, fear, and thoughts of uncertainty, you’re in the right place.

Tune in this week to discover how to meet yourself with compassion, and show up, even when it feels impossible. This isn’t about ignoring reality; far from it. I’m showing you how to process what’s going on around you in difficult times, and uncover your compelling reasons for showing up, so you can be a light in the world during chaos and uncertainty.

When COVID hit, I created my most popular five-day program, A Week of Calm. Well, with everything that’s going on in the world right now, or even if you’re just concerned about your life’s circumstances, you might need a little more calmness in your life, so I’m opening the doors again. And the amazing news… it’s totally free! So, if you want to show up differently in times of chaos, click here to get started.

What You Will Discover: * Why it’s totally understandable if you’re feeling all the feelings right now. * A truly inspirational story of someone showing up in my life this week, even though they’re going through an undeniably hard time. * Why difficulty and worry generally come in a package, and how I get clear on my worries. * The importance of honoring how you’re feeling. * Where, without doing the work, we show up in a way that makes difficult situations even harder to deal with. * How I deal with showing up, even when it’s hard. * One question to ask yourself to guide how you can to show up as your best self in the hard times.

Featured on the Show: * Download the Self-Image Manifesto and be the first to hear about amazing developments in our community! * Learn more about The School of Self-Image and join today! * Get on the waitlist for my new upcoming Business Image Mastermind! * Love the show? Leave a review of the show in Apple Podcasts (click the link to find out how). * Follow me on Instagram! * Find me on Facebook!

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Episode Transcript:

When life is hard, one of the last things that you want to do is show up for it. And yet, life still goes on and we have responsibilities, and we have goals and dreams that we envision for ourselves. And so, showing up is important. But how do you do it when life is hard? Well, that’s what this episode is all about. So, let’s dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here’s your hostess, master life coach Tonya Leigh.

Hello, my gorgeous friends. Do you know that one of my favorite things to do every single week is sit down and record this podcast? It is very rare that I have a week where I’m like, “Oh, I’ve got to get this podcast done.” It happens occasionally. But for the most part, I am always excited.

And I was thinking about why that is. And what I’ve found in my mind is that I have thoughts like, “This is a way for me to connect with many people. This is a way for me to hopefully add a little sparkle to your day. This is a way for me to share with you what’s worked in my life and what hasn’t worked.” And it’s a great honor for me to be able to share these things with you.

I had a completely different episode planned for today, but I just wasn’t feeling it. You all know what that’s like, right? Like, you just tap into the energy of what’s going on, how you’re feeling, and you’re like, “Nope, that’s not the podcast for this week.”

Just when I thought that we were having a moment where the collective nervous system could calm down, we now are facing new things to worry about. And I’ve been receiving many messages from clients and family and friends about, “How do I deal with this? I’m freaking out. I’m scared.”

Or I even have friends who are in the region of conflict right now, or they have family there and they are feeling all of the things. And rightfully so. And so, since I’ve bene getting a lot of questions and requests, I have decided to open up one of my most popular five-day workshops that I’ve ever done. It’s called A Week of Calm.

You can go to weekofcalm.com and I created this when COVID first started. Y’all remember that. I think it was March of 2020. And everyone was freaking out. No one knew what this virus did. No one knew how to deal with it. There was this panic globally about COVID 19. And so, I decided to do this five-day workshop to help those who wanted to show up differently in the chaos.

And I believe that no matter what’s happening in the world – we have more of the global meta things to worry about, but even in our day-to-day lives. Some of you may have lost a job. Some of you may be going through a divorce. Some of you may be sick or you’re dealing with someone and caring for someone who is sick.

Listen, y’all, I believe in the law of attraction. I believe in the energy and the magnetism of our emotions. But I don’t use that as a reason to escape the realities of life for every single human being. Part of it is hard and awful and sad and there’s also the part that’s beautiful and joyful and amazing.

And I always want to – whenever I am talking with you or working with my clients – to honor both. And when you are in those chaotic hard times, I want to provide you the tools to help you navigate them. And that is why I highly suggest, if you are in a state right now – that’s what I call it, you’re in a state – a state that you want to figure out how to handle in a way that serves you, go check out weekofcalm.com and take part in this five-day workshop.

It is by far one of the favorite things I’ve ever put out into the world because it was our lifeline for many of us during the pandemic. So, I hope you enjoy it. and this is my gift to you.

Today’s podcast – this might be hard for me to actually record, you guys. I’m going to keep going. The show must go on.

So, my project manager and her husband, who does our web design – he creates a lot of the magic behind the scenes – they moved to the States in December of 2021. So, just a few months ago. And they moved from the Ukraine.

All of their family is still there, and they are in the middle of this war that is happening. And this week, I can’t imagine being in their shoes. They know I love them, and I appreciate them so much. But this week, they have shown up even when it’s hard.

I can’t imagine having left my family and then a war comes along, and they’re stuck there, and I can’t get to them, I can’t help them, I can’t do anything really for them. And that is the situation that they’re in. And yet, this entire week, they’ve been on the meetings. They have done the work. And they have showed up even when it’s hard.

And I’ve seen Anna’s face and I can tell that she’s not well. She’s probably not sleeping very well. She’s worried. You can tell, she’s in fight or flight, and yet, she’s still showing up when it’s really hard.

And it was offered to her that she doesn’t need to work right now, like, take time off. But she chose to keep working. And I get it. I know when I’ve been in hard situations, sometimes having something to focus on instead of what you’re worrying about is a little bit of relief.

But as I was saying earlier, I know that some of you listening right now, you’re in a hard time. And maybe just dealing with the past two years, you’re like, “I have had enough. I just want a break.”

And yet, the world keep happening and doing what the world does. And so, I wanted to dedicate this podcast to all of you amazing men and women – because we have men that listen to this podcast, which I think is really cool.

But I want to dedicate it to you all who are in the hard right now. And I want to share with you how I deal with showing up when it’s hard.

The first thing I want to share with you is around worry. Because a lot of times, I have found that hard and worry coincide. They usually come in a package. And so, I’ve shared this on a previous podcast. But I want to briefly share it again here because it’s been really helpful for me.

When life is feeling hard and I’m full of worry, I like to do a list. And I write down everything that I’m worried about, everything that I think could happen in the world, could happen to my family, could happen in my business, could happen to my friends. I just write it all down.

And then, I create two lists. One is my list, and the other one, I put as God’s list. And I start to separate things out.

So, the way I do this is I look at my list and everything that I have absolutely no control over, I put on God’s list. And I have a conversation with the universe, like, “Hey, listen, this is bigger than me. I’m going to let you handle this one. You’ve got this.”

I love that I actually cheer the universe on when the universe has always had it, right? But I just give that to God, the universe. And then, everything else goes on my list. And that’s what I focus on. I focus on what I have control over.

I remember doing this during the pandemic. I couldn’t control the virus. I mean, I had some influence like wearing my mask and, you know, not being around people. That was in my control, yes, 100%. But on a global level, we didn’t know how this virus is going to operate.

And so, at the end of the day, I didn’t have control over COVID 19. And so, I wrote down, “We may all die. I may get sic. My business is going to crumble.” Like, all of the things that I know we all were thinking during COVID, that was probably what I was worried about too in the beginning. Until I did the Week of Calm, tat totally shifted me, truly.

But in the beginning, I was freaking out. And then, I wrote down what I had control over; taking care of my health, wearing my mask, doing all the things that we were told to do in the beginning to take care of ourselves and protect our neighbors. I did all of those things. And that’s all I had control over. And that’s what I focused on.

So, write down your list and separate it out. Give what you can’t control over to God, the universe, whatever you call a higher power. And then, you take care of the rest. So, that’s number one.

Number two – and this has been really helpful for me. The other thing that has been really helpful for me is to honor how I’m feeling. I feel like a lot of our suffering – in fact, most of our suffering – is because we don’t allow ourselves to be human and to feel all of the human emotions.

So, when we start to feel sad or angry or whatever those emotions are, we want to instantly change it. Especially people that don’t know the law of attraction really well and you’re afraid of attracting bad things into your life. You’re like, “Oh, I’ve got to feel better right now.” That or you beat yourself up.

You beat yourself up because you are being a human, is what I like to say. So, for me, it’s been so helpful just to be like, “Yeah, babe, you’re anxious today. You’re sad today. You’re worried right now. That’s okay, I’ve got you.” And that energy just lightens the mood a little bit.

Because what I used to do was feel anxious, sad, or worried and beat myself up for it and feel even worse. So, allow yourself to be where you are. In fact, this whole month within the School of Self-Image is exactly what we are talking about; emotional mastery.

And as I told the women within the membership, I’m like, “The first step is you have to feel and honor where you are right now in order to change it.” But a lot of you are trying to change it without being where you are right now. And it’s impossible.

It’s like me being here in Denver and trying to get to California but not wanting to admit I’m in Denver. I don’t know if that was a good analogy, but it’s what I’ve got right now. But honoring where you are, I think, is the way to show up when it’s hard. And here’s why.

When you finally accept that you are in a hard place feeling the hard things, you don’t use all of your energy fighting with where you are. And trust me, that takes a lot of energy to suppress and deny and try to pretend.

Instead, it’s like, “Okay, I’m anxious today, and I’m going to get some work done. Okay, I’m feeling really sad today and I’m still going to show up and get some work done. Or I’m going to show up for my family,” whatever it is that you’re wanting to show up for.

So, allow yourself and honor where you are right now. And then, that leads me to the next thing. I have found that it’s really helpful when I’m in acute phases. Like, when I am so deep in just really uncomfortable and painful emotions – and I’m talking about sadness, grief, that kins of energy – to allow myself to do the bare minimum.

I experienced this when my daughter was sick. And I still showed up. But I gave myself grace and I’m like, “Okay, you’ve got some things to do. Whatever you can take off your plate right now, do. Get it off your plate and do the bare minimum.

Because here’s the thing. We want to honor where you are, but we also want to keep your momentum moving. I know what it’s like to be in a hard place and then you just stop. And as you stop, you just – I don’t want to say indulge, but you just ruminate in that energy. And then, things begin to pile up around you.

Maybe you’re overeating. Maybe you’re doing things that don’t serve you. And then, you’ve added layers upon layers of hardness on top of the already hard thing. And so, how can you keep the momentum going, show up, and still get some things done and also, at the same time, give yourself grace?

And for me, that’s allowing myself to do the bare minimum. Like, “Today, I’m going to go work out for 10 minutes, or I’m going to write one page.” For those of you who work for someone else, look at how can you do the bare minimum outside of work, so that you can still keep things moving a little bit, but you’re not moving so fast that you’re exhausting yourself and there’s no space for healing and there’s no space for processing.

The other thing is to allow yourself to do mediocre work. And this is really hard for us perfectionists. But when it’s hard, what we often want to do, especially again for perfectionists, is we want to do nothing at all. We want to wait until we feel amazing, or we want to wait until we think it’s perfect in order to do the thing, or to put the thing out into the world.

And I really believe, you all, that the secret to my success, other than expanding my self-image, is my willingness to do mediocre work when it’s hard. And I honestly remember putting some things out in the world four years ago that wasn’t my best work. Even two years ago, it wasn’t my best work.

But I still showed up and I still did the best I could, and I allowed it to be mediocre, knowing that the momentum would keep me moving. And not only that, I would learn so much about what I want to do different next time.

And so, allow yourself to do mediocre work, especially when it’s hard. The other little hack that I have for showing up when it’s hard is to do the opposite of what your mood tells you to do.

Oftentimes, our moods want to feed themselves. Sad moods want to feed themselves with sad music, sad thoughts, sad clothing, sad, sad, sad, sad. Now, I will add this in there. There is a moment for that. Especially if you haven’t allowed yourself to feel for a long time. You need to get that sadness out. You need to put on the sad music, and you need to cry.

But a lot of times, what happens is that we indulge in these moods, and we stay there, and we constantly live a life based on our mood, not our desires. And so, when my mood tells me to procrastinate, I get to work.

When my mood tells me sometimes, “You need to go work,” and it’s always when – I wish you could see my hands right now, the way I’m doing them. But sometimes my mood’s like, “You need to go work harder.” And that’s coming from fear, or it’s coming from me wanting to avoid something else in my life. That’s usually when I’ll go rest.

When my mood tells me to go eat, that’s when I check in with my body and I’m like, “hey, are you really hungry?” And usually, the answer is no, when the mood’s telling me to eat.

And so, just doing the opposite of what my mood tells me to do is another way to show up even when it’s hard, in service of who I want to be and in service of the vision that I have for my life, my company, and myself.

The other thing that I suggest – and we talk about this in the Week of Calm. I think it’s on the final day. But it’s important that you have a goal when things are hard. Because what happens is, if you don’t have a focus when you wake up in the morning and your brain is left to do its mental gymnastics, that it’s not a good performance, you can just spin in an energy that doesn’t serve you.

And sometimes, the goal can be so tiny for that day. But it gives you a focus of where to focus your energy and to, again, keep things moving in a direction that serves you. So, I think that’s super important. And again, we go through this in the Week of Calm. So, I’m not going to go too far into detail on that, but again, go to weekofcalm.com and you can access the program. So, have a goal.

Now, I want to talk more about self-care when things are hard and how to show up. The first thing I’ve noticed when things are hard, what my mood tells me to do is to stay inside and to worry and panic and feel bad.

So, I like to get outside. I like to get outside every day anyway because I feel like we all need more vitamin D. But being outside and being in the sun and being in the fresh air is a way to get your energy moving and to shift your mood a little bit.

The other thing that I suggest is to get into good company. Put yourself around those people who uplift you, that you can talk with, that help you see the world maybe in a different perspective than what you’re seeing right now that makes it feel so hard. I think that’s super important.

Eating well. It’s crazy that when it’s hard is when we often want to choose foods that make it hard on our bodies. And this is why, when it’s hard and you’re having a hard time showing up, it is so critical that you take care of yourself; more critical than ever.

So, this is a time when I want you to really think about nourishing yourself well with delicious foods that work for your body. The other thing is to move. This is all about movement. And you don’t have to move as fast as maybe you would when life doesn’t feel so hard.

But we want you to keep moving because, when you stop moving, that inertia is often what takes us down and spirals us out of control. And so, move. And maybe you go to the bare minimum, as I was saying earlier. Maybe the bare minimum for you today is, “I’m going to walk for 10 minutes. Or I’m going to stretch for 20 minutes.” But make sure you’re moving your body every single day.

And then, you know I couldn’t have this podcast and not talk about one of my favorite topics, which is style. What does style have to do with showing up when it’s hard? Get dressed.

Again, remember when I said moods love to feed on themselves? So, a bad mood will tell you to go put on your sweats and eat Cheetos. That’s what my bad moods used to tell me to do. They still try to temp me every once in a while.

But getting dressed is a sign to the universe that you’re showing up. And more importantly, it’s a sign to yourself that you are showing up. It’s just like that act alone tells my brain, “Let’s go.”

And again, this might be where you go to the bare minimum. Maybe you don’t get dressed to the nines and do a full face of makeup. Maybe you’re like, “Okay, I’m just going to put on a dress because this makes me feel a little bit better, but I’m not going to do my hair and makeup today, and that’s okay.”

We have to give ourselves grace as well. It’s really a dance between honoring where you are as well as honoring where you want to go, honoring your goals, honoring your vision. And sometimes in life, we’re moving quickly in that direction and we’re feeling great, and life doesn’t feel hard.

And at other times, things happen, and we have a lot of thoughts about them that weigh us down and life becomes hard for us. And that is just the reality of being a human being. And so, honor that. And also, honor where you are and honor where you’re going. And honor the pace that you need to go at.

Finally – and this is more of a broad question that I ask myself when life is hard, when it feels hard. And the question is, who do I want to be in this? Who do I want to be in this hardness? Who do I want to be in this life?

No matter what is happening in the world, you get to decide who you want to be in that. Oftentimes, when hard things happen, we revert back to past patterns of how we dealt with hard. And maybe that hasn’t served you. I know it didn’t for me because I would freak out. I would panic. I would worry endlessly for days, weeks, years.

And then, I realized, “Oh, wait, I can actually show up in this hard in a new way.” And this question has guided me in purposefully living in the hard. When we’ve had hard things happen in the company, I’ve asked myself, “Who do you want to be in this?” Because I am starting to deal with ageing parents, I’m asking myself, “Who do I want to be in this?”

When I went through my divorce, when my daughter was sick, when I injured my back, I asked myself, “Who do I want to be in this?” And my answers have ranged from loving to strong to supportive to assertive.

But asking that question has allowed me to show up in the hard in a very intentional way that has helped me navigate it in a way that serves me. And on the other end of it, helped me to learn and to grow and oftentimes to create results that I would have never been able to create had I just allowed my past self to take over and behave the way that she was used to behaving.

Even during this world crisis that we’re facing, I’m asking myself, who do I want to be? Who do I want to be for you all? Who do I want to be for my family? Who do I want to be for my team? And I’m allowing that answer to guide how I show up in the hard times, in the hard things.

During COVID, I asked myself, “Who do I want to be right now?” And the first answer that came to my mind was, “I want to be calm.” And that is exactly why I created Week of Calm.

So, again, if you are going through a hard time and you’re feeling a lot of anxiety, a lot of worry, a lot of uncertainty, go sign up for this free five-day workshop at www.weekofcalm.com.

Do we say, “WWW,” anymore? I feel like that was so 2000. Anywho, get in that workshop. You will find that will help calm your nervous system down and it will give you the tools to show up even when it’s hard. I love you all and I will see you in next week’s episode.

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The Self-Image Manifesto

You’re Invited To Live An Extraordinary Life!

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The weight of words can tip the scale of your self-image one way or the other with surprising swiftness and accuracy. What you tell yourself about yourself, the world around you, and your circumstances is impactful in a way that can be far more effective even than the things others have to say.

Self-talk is your inner voice, and the words you use are far more powerful than you think.

You might not be aware you're doing it, but the majority of us have a running dialogue in our heads that rarely pipes down.

Self-talk can be both negative and positive. It can lift you and keep you soaring through life, or it can bring you down and keep you there.

But what about the words we use with others?

In today's post, I'm talking about how we speak to ourselves, why it matters and how to change the dialogue to serve us.

I'm also going to share how what we say to others makes a difference in our lives, and I'm going to discuss how we can tune in and tune up our vibration to help us create what we want.

Why Do Self-Directed Words Matter? Self-talk can lift you and improve your general wellbeing – or bring you crashing down and keep you there.

Positive self-talk and a more optimistic outlook don't just affect your self-image. A high vibrational inner voice has been shown to have several health benefits, including:

increase vitality and enthusiasm
Increase your overall life satisfaction
Improve your immune function
reduce pain and physical discomfort
better cardiovascular health
better physical wellbeing
Increased longevity
lower stress and help you distress

It's unclear why optimists and individuals with more positive self-talk experience these benefits. However, research shows that women with positive self-talk may have brain skills that enable them to solve problems, think outside the box, and more efficiently cope with hardships or challenges – all of which can reduce the harmful effects of stress and anxiety.

Mindfulness exercises can be a tremendous help in alerting us to negative thoughts and self-talk that may simply be habitual.

Likewise, the practice of positive self-talk through the use of affirmations and journaling can go a long way toward lifting us up and transforming our self-image.

The weight of Words With Others Do you ever find yourself complaining about everything to everyone who will listen - like all the time?

You may not even notice. Sometimes we complain to fill the silence or create chit-chat where it isn't necessary.

Do you tend to say "yes" all the time (even when you'd like to say no) because you feel the need to please?

Or, do you find yourself engaging in gossip – even when you don't mean to?

The words we use with others – like our internal dialogue – have a massive impact on how we feel and how we see ourselves.

The heaviness of Complaining Did you know?? Additional cortisol is released by frequent complaining, which can harm your immune system and render you more prone to obesity. Obesity, of course, can lead to heart disease, blood sugar imbalance, and high cholesterol.

But that's not the worst of it. The worst of it, my friends, is that – as Tony Robbins puts it – "where our attention goes, energy flows."

Complaining is expressing discontent, frustration, discomfort, unhappiness, or resentment. We often think we are just "venting," but in reality, complaining impacts our thinking, feelings, and overall level of happiness and contentment.

When we complain, we are in a low vibration, and that vibration feeds on itself to continue its downward spiral.

We all do it, Ladies. In fact, the average person complains 15 to 30 times a day.

Unfortunately, complaining is hard on your mood and the mood of those around you. And, like a wildfire, it can spread its negativity, eventually burning everything to the ground.

Most of us don't intend to torture others with our complaints. Instead, we'd likely attribute our complaining to "just getting it all out" or making ourselves feel better if brought to our attention.

Unfortunately, it has the opposite effect, damaging not only our general mood but also our physical health.

A little exercise you can do is partner up with a trusted friend - or your partner - or anyone you spend a great deal of time with and ask them to help you recognize when you're complaining.

No – The Most Powerful Word You Can Add To Your Vocabulary For women especially, the default answer to nearly every request is almost always "Yes." So deeply ingrained in our DNA, we can't seem to help ourselves from saying yes when all we want to do is say No. When we manage to get out a boundary respecting no, we often feel trapped, guilty, and frustrated.

Saying yes when we genuinely want to say no leads to resentment, confusion, and dissatisfaction – or even worse, that we've let ourselves down because we didn't have our own back.

It all comes down to honesty. Are you ready, willing, and able to be honest with yourself and then with others? This can be the hardest step - but also the most liberating.

Try saying no to little things at first. No to a polite offer of a second drink or dessert. Notice how good it feels to take care of yourself and not your host!

Next, practice the art of saying no to demands on your time. There is no need to give reasons and explanations. A simple "no thank you" or "unfortunately, I'm not available but thank you for asking" will do.

Gossip Girl – Words That Hurt We usually associate gossip with malicious rumors, unkind discussion of another person or their behavior outside of their presence, or tabloid fodder.

However, according to Megan Robbins, an assistant professor of psychology at The University of California, Riverside researchers often define gossip more broadly as "talking about people who aren't present. It's something that comes very naturally to us," she says. She says that talking about other people can be an integral part of sharing information or even community building.

However, even the most benign discussions of not present people can turn into words that hurt.

Hurting someone through gossip can be defined as sharing private information about them with others, spreading untruths, or talking about something they've done in a judgmental or mean-spirited way.

Hurtful tattle is not helpful and does not serve you in any way. Here are a few ways to eradicate the unhealthy stain of gossip from your life.

Don't spend time with people who gossip. Chances are pretty good that if they are talking about others to you, they are talking about you to them. Also, since it's human nature to talk about other people (sometimes in the most benign way), it can be easy to get sucked into discussions that can only bring you down energetically.
Be different and set the tone. Gossipers are nosy magpies and meddlers who seek attention – don't be that person. When you engage in a conversation, as yourself: is it true, is it kind, is it necessary? Try changing the subject when someone starts gossiping about another – anything will do: books, music, current events, inspirational stories, culture, health, wellbeing, or personal development are all great topics of discussion that are far more valuable than gossip.

Words Have More Power Than You Think Words are powerful and can have a positive or negative effect on your wellbeing - spiritually, emotionally, and physically. Take care and choose them wisely.

Whether talking to yourself or talking to others, be thoughtful, kind, and loving. Always pay attention to how your words affect your inner and outer world.

Self-Image Makeover

Live Your Life With Style, Flare, and Elegance

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What are you feeling right now? It’s important that you are crystal clear because your emotions are like magnets. They are what is attracting certain people, experiences, and opportunities into your life, and they are repelling the ones that don’t find their way to you. It's called emotional magnetism.

If you don’t like what you are attracting and what you are experiencing in your day-to-day, it is essential that you learn emotional mastery. And a huge part of this process is understanding emotional magnetism and using your emotions to bring in more of what you want for your life.

Tune in this week to discover how to leverage your emotions to attract more brilliance into your life. I’m sharing how to see the ways your current emotional state is attracting things you don’t love, and I’m giving you the step-by-step for how to attract more of what you want, even when you’re not feeling your absolute best.

The doors to the School of Self-Image are open, but only for 72 hours. Throughout the month of March, I’m teaching you everything that I know about emotional mastery. I’m sharing my personal practice of how I welcome in emotions and feel them fully, and I’m also going to teach you how to learn from every emotion that comes up for you.

Have you grabbed your free copy of the School of Self Image Manifesto? If not, what in the world? Click here to get your copy and learn how to think and show up in the areas of mindset, style, and surroundings so that you can transform your self-image.

What You Will Discover: * Why low emotional states attract negative people and things, and high emotional states attract positive people and things into your life. * One recent example from my own life of my emotions attracting some amazing people. * How to see times in your own life where you have attracted people on the same emotional wavelength as yourself, both good and bad. * What you can do to question whether you like what you’re attracting into your life. * Why your emotional state isn’t changed by adjusting anything around you. * How to attract beautiful things into your life, even from a negative emotional state.

Featured on the Show: * Download the Self-Image Manifesto and be the first to hear about amazing developments in our community! * Learn more about The School of Self-Image and join today! * Get on the waitlist for my new upcoming Business Image Mastermind! * Love the show? Leave a review of the show in Apple Podcasts (click the link to find out how). * Follow me on Instagram! * Find me on Facebook!

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Episode Transcript:

What are you feeling right now? It’s important that you know because your emotions are like magnets. They are attracting certain people, experiences, and opportunities into your life. And they are repelling others. So, if you don’t like what you are attracting, what you are experiencing, it is essential that you learn emotional mastery. And that’s what we’re talking about in this episode. So, let’s dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here’s your hostess, master life coach Tonya Leigh.

Well hello, gorgeous friends. What’s happening? How are you doing? How are you feeling? I’m feeling great, truly. I’ve experienced a lot of emotions though this week, everything from anxiety to frustration, to doubt, to bliss, and joy, and abundance.

And when people ask me, “What is the secret to creating an extraordinary life?” it really comes down to expanding your self-image. But what you have to understand is that your self-image is your predominant state of being. And your predominant state of being consists of the predominant thoughts that you have about yourself, which then creates the predominant emotions that you feel most of the time.

And those predominant emotions are like magnets. They are attracting certain things into your life and they’re repelling other things from your life. This is why the most important skill you will ever, ever learn is how to master your emotions.

And this is why I have decided to open the doors to the School of Self-Image for enrollment for 72 hours. In fact, when you’re listening to this, it may be the final day that the doors will be open.

But I wasn’t going to do this until I was going through the workbook for the month of March, and I realized that I would be doing this community a disservice if I don’t allow women to jump in and participate in this month’s class.

I called up my team and I’m like, ‘Listen, I know we have a lot going on right now and I know this was not a part of our plan, but I feel so strongly that I need to get this class in particular in the hands of as many women as possible.” Because without this skillset, you will forever be avoiding the discomfort of your dreams and engaging in the familiar discomfort of destructive habits that you may have.

So, if you’re someone who is struggling to create results in your life and you know deep down that the root problem is the emotional work that’s required, come join us. Here’s my promise to you. If you jump in this month and you do this work, it’s going to change your life in the most beautiful ways.

I’m going to teach you everything that I know about emotional mastery. I’m going to share my personal practice of how I welcome in emotions, and I feel them fully. I’m also going to teach you how to learn from your emotions.

All emotions are our teachers. They’re teaching us when we’re on course and when we’re off course, and I’m going to share with you how to decipher what that process is and how to learn from them.

And then finally, I’m going to teach you how to produce powerful emotions that will drive you forward, that will help you create incredible results in your life. So, that’s what we’re going to be focused on within the School of Self-Image during the month of March. You can head to schoolofselfimage.com/join.

Come join us. Not only are we experiencing major transformations within this membership, but we have so much fun doing it because my philosophy is, if it’s not fun, what are we doing? We’re doing it wrong. So, again, come join us, schoolofselfimage.com/join.

In this episode, I want to talk with you about emotional magnetism. I had a really fascinating experience a couple of weeks ago while we were in South Beach. I was at the W Hotel, and I was with my man. And we were in the pool. And we were off to the side. But we were in deep conversation.

We were laughing. We were having so much fun. And all of a sudden, I noticed that people were coming from the other side of the pool, and they were getting closer to us. And before I knew it, we had about seven people around us who were then engaging in our conversation with our company.

And I was watching this all happen. It was like I was having an out-of-body experience watching the scene play out. and I literally imagined this electric current that people got sucked into.

And I believe it’s because of one of two things. Either they were on that same vibration, and so they recognized it, they wanted to be a part of it. Or they wanted to be at that vibration, and so they stepped into it.

And we ended up having so much fun. I met the most incredible people, some of which we are still staying in touch with. It was just so fun. It was like we were all a perfect match for each other.

And every day that we went to the pool, that little group got bigger and bigger because the intensity of the emotion of us all together was stronger and greater as the number of people grew. It’s like that energy just intensified.

Now, on the flipside, I have experienced the opposite of that, where I’ve been in a low energy state, a low emotional state and I started to attract people into my life who mirrored that. And as we all got together and we complained about our lives and how terrible our lives were and how we’ve messed up in the past and, you know, the big sob story, it’s like that energy intensified.

And the more intense the emotion, the stronger the pull into it. Have you ever noticed, you all, that when you are in a state of feeling sadness, loneliness, depression, unworthiness, the more you stay in that state, the more you gather the energy of that mood? Because emotions are magnetic, and so you spiral into this cycle of negative thinking, and then you attract maybe other people into your lives that are thinking at that level, or things begin to happen outside of you that you’ve attracted into your life. And then, it’s as if it’s just a big boulder that’s going down the mountain so fast, you feel like you can’t stop it.

I know what that feels like. On the flipside, however, have you ever been in a heightened state? You’re feeling love, you’re feeling abundance, you’re feeling joy, you’re feeling excitement, and all of a sudden, just like in the pool, things and people start to show up to match that energy and you collect more evidence, and that energy intensifies.

And as that energy intensifies, you’re showing up differently. You’re taking different action. And you are gathering more and more evidence to mirror back that energy to you. This is how emotional magnetism works.

I have said for many years, you don’t attract what you want. You attract who you are. So, with love for yourself, with a curiosity and a fascination, just notice how you are experiencing and attracting and showing up in such a way in your life that mirrors back to you your predominant state of being.

And then ask yourself, “Do I like the results I’m creating? Do I like what I’m attracting?” And if not, the first step is to learn emotional mastery.

The art of mastering your emotions starts with understanding where your emotions come from. And it’s never from anything outside of you. And that’s where we get it wrong. And that’s why we spend so much time trying to rearrange our outside world to feel better, only to find ourselves feeling exhausted and full of frustration and slowing down our journey.

Your emotions are always created within you, but you have to be willing to look at your emotions, to feel your emotions. The first step of emotional mastery is to allow yourself to feel and to understand what those emotions are trying to teach you, what they’re showing you, what they’re telling you.

This is why, when the boulder is moving so fast in a direction that you don’t want it to go, that it feels like it’s so hard to stop. It’s because we’re resisting our emotions. We don’t want to feel them. We don’t want to experience them. So then, we engage in behaviors, and we attract things into our lives that just make them bigger, they make them a bigger problem.

So, you have to be willing to let them come to the surface and to experience them fully. Then you must understand what is creating that emotion. It’s always going to be a thought in your head, you all, always.

I know you think it’s because the kids aren’t behaving, or the boss did something at work or your best friend didn’t text you back or you received an unexpected bill in the mail. But those things don’t create your emotions. You don’t feel an emotion until you attach a thought to it.

And that is good news because that means that no matter what is happening in your outside world, you get to decide how you want to feel on purpose. But here’s the part I see a lot of you all doing. You want to skip to step three.

Step three is creating powerful emotions. You want to skip through the discomfort. You want to bypass that, but you can’t. Do you know why? Because you’re human.

I mean, even with all of this work and knowing all of this and practicing it for a decade now, I still feel anxiety. I still feel worry. I still feel doubt. I still feel all of the humanness of this experience.

But the difference now is I don’t resist it. I embrace it. I know this is the curriculum. I know this is meant to grow me. I also know that negative emotion isn’t the enemy. This is another area where we get it wrong, especially for those of us who know the law of attraction, which states like attracts like.

When we start to feel a negative emotion, we start believing we are going to attract negative things into our lives because emotions are magnets. But here’s the thing – and this is like the little secret I want to teach all of you. When you are not afraid of negative emotion, you’re in a powerful state.

Really think about that. When you’re not afraid of negative emotion, you are in a powerful state. There is no resistance. It’s the resistance that causes us so much suffering. Again, we engage in behaviors to avoid feeling our emotions, or we’re chasing after things outside of us to try to create an emotion.

But when you just allow emotions to be and you embrace them, you welcome them, you’re not afraid of them any longer, that is when you, on a vibrational level, are a force to be reckoned with. And it explains why, during periods of my life where I was sad on a consistent basis, or I was feeling afraid – I think about when my daughter was sick. I had a lot of fear. And yet, I was still attracting amazing things into my life.

And the reason being is that I wasn’t fighting it. And there was a relaxing into the discomfort. I didn’t spin stories in my head that something was wrong with me, that it wasn’t working and only adding to and compounding the negative emotion. I just said, “Oh, I’m feeling afraid today, and that’s okay. I’m human.”

And then, I would go into my brain and look at why I was feeling afraid, and I would clean it up. And then, I would decide on purpose, “This is the emotion that I want to create today.”

I share this with you because I know that some of you who are listening are in what we’ll just call a low-vibe state. And you’re so afraid of attracting more things into your life to match that state.

But the best way to begin to spiral in the opposite direction, to get that boulder moving in a different direction is to stop pushing up against it and to just step away and witness it and let it keep rolling down that mountain. You don’t have to go with it. You can just witness it. You can feel it. You can stop fighting it.

Because it is true. What you resist persists, right? The emotional magnetism is a frequency. And it is true that like frequencies attract like frequencies. But this does not mean you have to be on top of the world all of the time.

Sometimes, I am my highest frequency when I’m afraid and I’m allowing myself to be afraid and I’m showing up anyway. There’s a power to that. What creates the low frequency is when we’re resisting the fear, when we’re resisting the feelings, whatever’s present for us.

I go back to a couple of times in my life, one being when my daughter was sick and the other one was when I was going through my divorce. And I was in quite a state. I had a lot of emotions running through my body.

But the difference was that I didn’t fight them. I didn’t spin stories in my head that I was a bad person or that there was something wrong with me or that I was doing it wrong. I was like, “Oh, here you are being a real human being.” And I still say that to myself today when I’m experiencing low-vibe emotions.

And just the acceptance of them helps me move into a higher vibe state. But even during those times, I was still showing up. I was still doing the work to create my future on purpose. I was still reaching for better feelings. But I didn’t try to bypass and skip this step of feeling what was present for me.

And throughout both of those two specific scenarios, my life get better and better. And again, I share this with you all because I don’t want you to think that if you are in a negative state, you can’t begin attracting beautiful things into your life.

I am living proof that you can. But the only way you can do that is if you stop fighting where you are. Notice when you stop fighting what you’re feeling and you just allow yourself to feel it, the relief that comes from that.

Some women will tell me, “But I’m afraid that if I allow myself to feel it, that I won’t be able to get out of bed, that I’m going to be down for a day.” And I would challenge you to consider, if you don’t allow yourself to feel it, eventually you’re going to end up in that bed and it’s going to be a lot harder.

But once you’re not afraid of feeling an emotion, which is simply a vibration in your body, that’s all it is. Once you’re not afraid of feeling that, then you can produce powerful emotions. You can create them on purpose. And when you get to this point, that’s when you can accelerate the magnetism of the things that you want.

You can begin to show up more powerfully. You can begin to attract new people and new experiences and new opportunities into your life. You will notice, you’ll be like me in the pool that day where, all of a sudden, all these people are showing up and you’re like, “Hi, where have you all been? I’ve been waiting on you.”

And the beautiful thing is, as you begin to create your emotions on purpose, you begin to transform your state of being into something more elevated. And over time, you will notice that you went from feeling, let’s say overwhelmed and afraid and insecure, to calm and confident and bold because you’ve practiced those new emotions so much that it’s just who you are most of the time.

You’re still human. You’re still going to have some negative emotion, and your experience was designed that way. You need the contrast. But as you begin to practice these powerful emotions, you’re going to notice you’re going to start attracting and magnetizing things into your life that are completely different than what you are currently attracting.

Your emotions are magnets. And if you do not like what you are attracting into your life, then it is necessary, it is essential that you learn how to master your emotions. It really is the most important skill I could ever teach you.

So, if you want to dive deeper into this and practice it on purpose with us within the School of Self-Image, then come join us. Even if it’s just for the month of March, get in on this class, learn the skills and the tools that I have used for the last decade to really blow my mind with hat I’m able to create. It really has come down to managing my emotional life.

So, if you want in, go to schoolofselfimage.com/join and I cannot wait to see you inside. And as always, I can’t wait to see you in next week’s episode.

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Recently I was chatting with a friend when she asked, “How can I create more meaningfulness in my life? What can I do to make life feel like it matters just a little bit more? To be honest, every day feels the same and, frankly, not all that important.”

It’s not uncommon for women to find themselves searching for meaning in their lives. I think we all feel at a loss sometimes when it comes to meaningfulness and purpose – even if meaning seems evident from the outside looking in.

And, it’s so very important to recognize and acknowledge the meaningfulness we have, because personal goals, purpose, self-worth, and integrity are wellsprings of a positive life.

Creating a meaningful life can ….

Elevate your overall health and wellbeing
Fill you with energy and vitality
Enable you to manage adversity better
Increase your productivity
Grow your general feeling of life satisfaction
Level up your self-image
Increase your ability to achieve a flow state – that state in which you feel “at one” with what you’re doing

According to a fascinating article published by the New Yorker, there was a study done in 2016 which found that a meaningful life has three significant aspects:

A feeling of purpose – having and working to achieve life goals that you consider essential and of significance.
Understanding – making sense of the events in your life and seeing how they weave into the whole.
Significance – the belief that your existence is valuable.

In a nutshell - a meaningful life has value, coherence, and significance.

So, How Is Meaningfulness a “Wellspring?” And what is meant by that anyway?

I looked up the definition of the word wellspring, and I loved what it said - Merriam Webster defines wellspring as an “original and bountiful source of something.”

Imagine having meaningfulness as a wellspring in your life and what a significant impact that could make.

To start with - a wellspring of meaningfulness could lead to an abundance of fulfillment, happiness, and joy, not to mention the plethora of other life benefits previously mentioned.

So how is a woman to tap into that?

How can we get access to the wellspring that could upgrade our lives on every level?

What Is Meaningful To You? Start by asking yourself a few questions about meaning and where it fits into your life.

What lights you up?
What gives you a sense of purpose?
What is your why for wanting what you want in life – for doing the things you do?

For some of us, it’s all about family. For others, it comes down to community or being of service. Meaning can come from creating, from making a positive impact on the world, or from leaving a legacy of some sort.

There is no singular or correct way to create meaning in your life - meaning is deeply personal and what is right is whatever is right for you.

Still, there are a couple of ways to do create meaning in such a way that it will truly grace your life:

Find The Sweet Spot Between Happiness and Meaning Often it feels as though there’s a tradeoff between happiness and meaning. But that doesn't signify that they are mutually exclusive. Not at all. Still, when we think of being happy, we typically think about things that feel good or offer up immediate gratification – sharing a delicious meal and conversation with friends, laughing with a loved one over something fun or funny, finding (and obtaining) the most fabulous pair of Manolo Blahniks, meeting a financial goal, or enjoying a day at the spa.

Alternatively, meaningful activities often involve making an effort, giving something up, or compromising in some way. Some examples could look like: years of study and financial investment into becoming a doctor or a teacher, donating time, money, or resources, volunteering, writing a book, investing time and energy into saving animals or the planet, or letting go of some freedom and carefree existence to commit to having and caring for a family.

Notice that the pursuit of meaning is often outward-focused, whereas happiness is very often inwardly focused. Not always, of course; but, often that’s the case.

The beauty of meaning is that it allows us to transcend any moments we may experience of deprivation because we are gratified that we are in pursuit of something bigger than ourselves.

Caring for loved ones
Raising well-adjusted children
Saving or improving lives
Educating others
Being of service to our community
Achieving important goals
Leaving a legacy for family or humanity

A life that is solely about pursuing hedonic happiness can be ultimately unfulfilling. Likewise, a life that is only focused on pursuing meaningfulness – while neglecting joy, laughter, and being present in each moment – can be unnecessarily austere.

The key is finding the perfect balance between joy and the present moment – often described as happiness – and pushing on to achieve meaning.

It’s The Little Things That Make A Difference You don’t have to save lives or be particularly heroic to make a difference and have meaning in your life. There are many ways you can make the world a better place for yourself, your loved ones, and humanity at large.

It’s possible that your name won’t go down in history as having made some massive, impactful contribution to the world. Still, it’s equally as important and noble to be able to look back and know that you took thousands of micro-actions that made a difference to others.

Bringing in the paper for your elderly neighbor and taking a moment to chat will likely make her day and alleviate her loneliness
Smiling at a stranger on the street could very well lift their spirits
Donating gently-used belongings to those in need
Volunteering at your local youth center or animal shelter
Offering to babysit – a meaningful contribution to any parent

A Meaningful Salute From You to You on Your 90th “To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson.

How wonderful it will be when your 90-year-old self can look back upon your life, give a salute and say, “Well done, Darling!”

Find your sweet spot and make the little things count. That’s all it takes, and your 90-year-old self will thank you in satisfaction and fulfillment.

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There was a time in my life when I just allowed everything into my world. I was reacting constantly, and I felt stuck. I felt like I wasn’t making progress in my life. However, when I started being selective, choosing things on purpose instead of just accepting whatever was thrown at me, that’s when my life started to get better faster.

Every day, we are handed opportunities to select what is allowed into our lives and reject what isn’t. And we all need to get into the habit of asking ourselves, “Does this support the life I’m trying to create?” We all need to be more selective, and that’s what this episode is all about.

If you want to show up differently in your relationships, change how you make decisions around money and how you navigate your career or business, tune in this week because starting this work of being selective will change all of it. I’m sharing how to decide what you want your life to look like, and then where you need to start being more selective in order to make that vision your reality.

What You Will Discover: * Where I commonly see people not being selective and seeing the choices that are available to them. * Why being selective in every situation life offers you is so important. * How we tend to select that which is a match for our energetic field and our self-image. * A recent example of me selecting something to complement the mood that I was in at the time, and why it turned out amazingly. * How to stop selecting the things that match your current self-image, and instead select as if you are the woman you want to become. * The areas of your life where this work of being selective applies that you may not have even considered before.

Featured on the Show: * Download the Self-Image Manifesto and be the first to hear about amazing developments in our community! * Learn more about The School of Self-Image and join today! * Get on the waitlist for my new upcoming Business Image Mastermind! * Love the show? Leave a review of the show in Apple Podcasts (click the link to find out how). * Follow me on Instagram! * Find me on Facebook!

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Episode Transcript:

Every day, we are handed opportunities to select what is allowed into our lives and reject what isn’t allowed. And we all need to get into the habit of asking ourselves, “Does this support the life I’m trying to create?” We all need to be more selective. And that’s what this episode is all about, so let’s dive in. Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here’s your hostess, master life coach Tonya Leigh.

What is happening, my friends? I have so much to catch up with you on. I just got back from Miami. I was there for the SOSI Beach live event. And let me just tell you all, if you weren’t there, you have no idea what you missed out on. We had the time of our lives.

It was even better than I had imagined. And trust me, I’d imagined fabulousness. But spending three days with the School of Self-Image members, having incredible content, having parties every night. I’m telling you, it was so much fun. In fact, we are already planning the next one. That’s how much fun we had.

I told my team, I was like, “Listen, we’re going to do this as an experiment.” Because I had never done a larger event, and quite honestly, I didn’t know if I was going to like it. I didn’t know if it was going to be one of those things, when I was done, it was going to be like, “Never again…”

But when it was done, I said, “Okay, let’s go.” In fact, before the weekend was over, we were already planning the next venue and securing a hotel. We are some quick starts on my team. When we make a decision, we get to work and make it happen. So, that was super fun.

And then, I stayed for an extra week because I held my team annual meeting in Miami, and so just all of it, the energy of being in Miami, in South Beach, the sun, the people, the conversations, I’m on a high right now. In fact, I’m probably talking really fast, so I’m going to have a sip of coffee and slow it down a little bit.

So, I got home two nights ago, three nights ago and then my parents flew in the next day, and we just celebrated my mom’s birthday last night. And just, oh my goodness, I can’t wait to tell you all everything that’s happening. It’s so good, so much fun.

And as I was sitting here this morning thinking about this episode and what I wanted to talk about, I revisited my past, when I just allowed everything into my world, I was reacting constantly, 24/7, and I felt stuck. I felt like I wasn’t making progress in my life.

But when I started to be selective, choosing things on purpose instead of just claiming whatever was handed to me, that’s when my life started to get better faster. And so, that’s what we’re going to talk about today on this episode. I want to talk about being selective.

When Fonz and I were in Miami, we went to this restaurant called Mila. It’s a beautiful restaurant. If you are ever in South Beach, I highly recommend you check it out. It’s quite the scene.

But we walked in, and we had to wait about seven or eight minutes for our table to be prepared. And they took us over to the table. And as soon as we looked at it, we were like, “No, this is not going to work.” And we told them, we were like, “We refuse to sit at this table. Find us a better table.” Especially Fonz is like 6”6. He’s a big guy.

And this table was in the corner, it looked like a child’s table. You know the little tables where we always put the kids when the adults were having dinner, that’s what this table looked like. It wasn’t in a good location. It was a small table, and it just wasn’t a fit for the experience that we wanted to have.

And so, we told the maître d’, we were like, “We need another table.” And so, she found us one much better table. And then, another couple came and sat down beside us. They had tried to seat them at the same table, and they refused because they saw us refuse it.

But eventually, we saw a couple who just took that table. And I was a little sad for them. I can’t imagine that they were okay with this table. The table was this bad. And yet, they sat there, and they just took what was given to them without asking for a different experience, without being selective.

So, I looked up the definition of selective, and it means, “Relating to or involving the selection of the most suitable or best qualified.” And then there was another really fascinating definition for electronics, which means, “Able to reject frequencies other than the one selected or tuned.” And when I read that one, I was like, “Whoa.”

I talk a lot, especially within my membership, about frequency and alignment and energy. And oftentimes, when it comes to the process of selection, we select what is on our energetic field.

So, for example – it’s a great example – when you are feeling depressed, when you’re feeling sad, when you’re in a mood, you will be more likely to select things that match that mood, that match that emotion. Like attracts like. And the opposite is true.

When you are in a high-vibe frequency, when you’re feeling delighted or excited or passionate or joyful, you are more likely to select things that match that frequency. And likewise, you are more likely to reject things that don’t match that frequency. And you can see this on both ends of the spectrum.

There have been many times, you all, where I was in a mood for long periods of time, that I would have friends come over and say, “Hey, let’s go out. Let’s go do something.” And I would be like, “No.” I would select an experience to complement the mood that I was in.

Equally, the other night, when we were offered that table, it didn’t match our mood, it didn’t match our frequency. And we were like, “No,” we rejected it, like, “This does not belong in our experience.”

So, just knowing this, that we can reject frequencies other than the ones that we want, and we can select things and people and experiences that match how we want to feel or how we’re currently feeling, is the secret, my friends.

Now, this is not easy. Because what we often do is we select things that match our current self-image. So, we see ourselves a certain way, and then we select things and people and experiences that match how we see ourselves.

So, for example, let’s say that you see yourself as a person who is afraid of confrontation, and you have your entire life steered clear of any kind of confrontation. When you are offered a table that doesn’t match how you want to experience that restaurant, for example, you will accept it. You will not select something else because of how you see yourself.

Another example is, if your self-image is that of a person who doesn’t manage money well, you will notice that your spending selections will mirror that back to you. You may overspend. You may not look at your spending. You will, in your mind, not be selective of your money and spend on purpose.

If you see yourself as someone who is unable to manage their time effectively, you will not be selective with how you use your time. You’re always selecting. But a lot of times, we are selecting the same things over and over again, so it becomes very impulsive and reactive. It’s not intentional.

So, knowing that your current selections are a mirror of your self-image, you can use this information for you. And the way to do that is to begin to make new selections to provide evidence for how you want to see yourself. And in this process, you just have to expect that it’s going to be uncomfortable.

Transforming your self-image is no joke. It is very uncomfortable. It takes a lot of effort in the beginning because you are rewiring your brain. And for many of us, we’re overcoming decades of thoughts and beliefs and habits, and now have a pile of evidence to confirm how we currently see ourselves.

And so, we must be patient with ourselves during this process. But I want you all to be thinking about how you want to see yourself in relationships, around money, around your career and business, all of the areas of your life, how do you want to see yourself? And what new selections do you need to make to mirror a new self-image?

For me, this year, I have an extraordinary goal. An extraordinary goal is a goal that is meant to grow you. It is out of the ordinary and it’s going to require that you develop a completely new identity in order to create it. It’s the very first thing that I have the women within the School of Self-Image membership do.

I’m like, “Okay, if you all need to understand who you want to become, just choose an extraordinary goal, and that will show you.” It will reveal to you who you need to become.

And so, this year, my extraordinary goal is a financial goal in my business. And it feels impossible. It feels hard. And the current me is not able to create that goal. I’m going to have to create a new identity in order to reach that goal.

And so, I was thinking about my selections and what I need to be more selective of in order to reach my goal. And my two areas that I know I need to be more selective of are time; how I use my time. And listen, you all, I feel like I’m already really good with time management. However, I need to be thinking about where I need to be placing my attention and how I need to be using my time in the most effective way to reach this next level.

So, that’s the first area. The second area for me is people, more specifically my team. I need to be very selective around who I hire and who I bring into the School of Self-Image to support me. Because listen, you all, no one does this alone. No one creates extraordinary success by themselves. There’s often a big group of extraordinary people making it happen.

And so, I need to be very selective with who I bring in, making sure that they match our culture and our values and they’re in alignment with our mission and our vision. So, this means not hiring in a hurry, not hiring because I need help immediately. That reconfirms an older self-image of someone who’s reactive, of someone who is not intentional. And I don’t want to do that.

Like, I know that I need to be more selective. I need to slow down and be meticulous and really think through the experience that I want to create for my members. I need to be keeping my extraordinary goal at the forefront and choosing people that are on that frequency.

The same goes for another project that I’m working on right now called the Business Image Mastermind. It is so good. I cannot wait to share it with the world. In fact, if you go to businessimagemastermind.com, you can join the waitlist so you will hear about it as soon as we open the doors.

But I was thinking about the women that I want in this mastermind, the dreamers, the doers, the ones who are supportive, the ones who live their lives from the future, the ones who are excited about what they are here to do. I was thinking about that frequency. And I will be required to be very selective of who comes into this mastermind.

Now, my work as a coach is to get women into that frequency. So, sometimes for example, someone will come into your world who isn’t on the same frequency as you are. But something within you knows that they want to be there.

They’re not just going to come in and complain and they don’t want to change. They come into your world for a reason. They come into your world because you can actually inspire them to elevate. And so, as I’m thinking about this Business Image Mastermind, for example, I’m holding the frequency of what I am going to invite women to step into.

However, in the application process, if I sense that a woman is not ready to step into that or she’s not willing, then I need to be very selective of that container of what I – the energy that I allow into it.

So, I want you all to be thinking about your goal. I want you to be thinking about the area of your life where you’re not being selective, and what it’s costing you. The first area we all need to look at, every single one of us, is our thoughts.

Are you selecting your thoughts on purpose? Or are you just letting your brain run wild without supervision? A thought pops into your head and you’re like, “I’m just going to hang onto that one,” even though it doesn’t serve you?

I always go back to style metaphors and analogies, but it’s like you putting on an ugly dress and just wearing it around all day, it looks terrible on you, and yet you don’t take it off. You just keep wearing it. That’s what choosing to believe a thought that doesn’t serve you is like.

And yet, when you have thought a certain way for so long and that belief system has formed your self-image, you will select thoughts that match that frequency, and you will reject thoughts that do not.

So, for example, if you’ve seen yourself as overweight, when thoughts pop into your mind like, “I have no control. This is never going to work. I will never lose the weight,” all of these old, recycled thoughts, when they pop up, you will hang onto them. You will select those. Versus selecting new thoughts and living into them.

I keep going back to the definition for selective as it relates to electronics where it says, “Able to reject frequencies other than the one selected or tuned.” Many of you are tuned into frequencies that just don’t serve you. So, you’re going to have to reach for a different frequency and start rejecting anything that doesn’t belong there, that doesn’t fit.

I’ll give you a really good example. Not too long ago – I don’t know, it was probably about a month ago – I received a message on social media, and it was not a nice message, you all. And usually, I don’t get these. I may get them, but my team is in my social media box, and so they usually handle a lot of my social media.

But sometimes, I love to go in there and respond to people and just see what’s happening. So, I go into my Instagram account and there’s a message there from this woman who clearly is not a fan.

Another way that I like to think of this is we just are on two different frequencies. One’s not better than the other. We’re just tuned into different things. And so, my frequency upsets her frequency. We’ll just say it that way.

But when it happened, I could feel myself getting pulled into her frequency with my thoughts. And then I was like, “Whoa, Tonya, you need to be very selective about what you think right now. Does this thought help you reach your goals? Does this thought belong in your future? Does this thought feel good to you?”

And the answer to the thoughts I was having in my head were, no, none of these thoughts were supporting me in any way. And so, I just did a practice and I got tuned into the frequency that I wanted to be on, and I started to select my thoughts to match that frequency. That is the work.

Now, here’s the best part. And this doesn’t always happen, but this was a cherry on top. A few days after that, I get a message from her apologizing and she was saying, “Listen, I was just having a really bad day. You posted something that triggered me, and it brought up all of my stuff and I just want to thank you because that is the stuff I need to work on.”

And I was like, “Yay.” I got into a different frequency, and she chose to get on a different frequency as well. However, for us both to have gotten into different frequencies, we had to be selective. We had to reject frequencies other than the ones that we were selecting or tuned into.

And the best place to start this is with your thoughts. It’s with your thinking. However, there are other areas where we all need to be more selective, which will support the thoughts that we want to have. For example, being selective with your relationships.

Now, there are different schools of thought around this. One of them being you don’t need to avoid certain people. You need to use people as your teacher and as an opportunity to work on your thoughts. And that is true.

In life, we’re going to come up against many different frequencies, people who trigger us, and I do believe – I call them your PETs. They’re your personal emotional trainers. They can be your greatest teachers.

However, I like being selective with who I allow into my world. I want to be using that brain power and that efforting in different ways, in reaching my goals instead of constantly having to do thought work because I keep putting myself around people and in rooms of people that are just constantly triggering me.

One of the core pillars within the School of Self-Image is your environment. So, in order to transform your self-image, we talk about your mindset, your style, and your environment, your surroundings. Those three things shape how you see yourself.

Now, can you change how you see yourself, your thoughts about yourself without changing your surroundings and your style? 100%. But what I can tell you, it’s going to take you a lot longer and it’s going to be a lot harder, which is, why don’t we just use this information for ourselves? Why don’t we set our lives up in such a way that it becomes easier to see ourselves differently?

And one of the ways you can do that is being selective about the people around you? Think of it this way. Let’s say, for example, you have a money goal. You want to make a million dollars, and currently the people that you choose to be around, that you’re selecting all think money is evil. They all think it’s ridiculous that you want to make a million dollars. No one in that group has ever made a million dollars, and none of them think it’s possible for you.

Now, could you make a million dollars around these people? 100%. But it is going to take a lot more efforting on your part in thinking intentionally. You’re constantly going to be being triggered and having to work on those thoughts, versus putting yourself in a room full of millionaires. They’ve all made a million dollars. They all think money is fun. They think you can do incredible things with money. They think money s easy. They love having money. They love sharing money. Their stories around money are totally different and they believe you can make a million dollars.

Which one of those groups do you think it will be easier to make a million dollars within? The group of millionaires, right? And this principle can be applied to any goal that you have. Let’s say you want to get in shape, you want to get in the best shape of your life. And currently, you’re around people who don’t value their health, who eat whatever is put in front of them, who don’t exercise, who make fun of people who want to be in shape, versus being around people who value their health, who are selective about what they put into their bodies, who love working out.

It's going to be so much easier to get in the best shape of your life if you’re surrounded by that latter group. I saw this when I moved to Colorado. Colorado is a state full of really healthy people who love being outdoors, who love hiking and biking and skiing and just enjoying life.

And so, when I moved here, I was more inspired to get outside, to really get in shape. And I continue to be on this journey. And I think a place like Colorado is one of the best places I could put myself in this frequency, this energy, these people in order to continue to elevate my own fitness journey.

When it comes to being selective with people, here is my two cents. Life is too short, you all, to surround yourself with people who are constantly triggering you, putting you down, the naysayers, the ones who are the pessimist. If you’re someone who has big dreams and you want to live an extraordinary life, start placing yourself around extraordinary people.

So, we have talked about being selective with your thoughts, being selective with the people you surround yourself with. I also want you to be selective about what I call your intellectual consumptions; what you consume with your mind. I’m talking about TV, music, podcasts, books, social media, any type of information you consume, you need to be 100% selective around because your mind is your greatest asset.

If you are putting junk in, you’re more likely to put junk out. Now, I don’t know what that is for you. Some of you may think that I’m talking about reality TV. Listen, if that’s your thing and you feel like it makes you better and it produces a result that you like, then who am I to say that’s junk for you?

I think we all have to decide for ourselves what is quality and what is not. All I want you to think about is are you selecting the best intellectual consumptions for you that match the frequency of your future?

I always love to go into my future and visualize the version of me that I am working towards and ask myself, “Is she watching this? Is she reading this? Is she looking at this?” And if not, I need to reject it in my present.

I’ve talked about this before on the podcast, but this happened with me during my weight loss journey. One day, I looked over at my bookshelf and it was just full of books that confirmed my self-image that something was wrong with me, that I was broken, and that I had a weight issue. Diet books, how to be happy books.

And I had this realization that those intellectual consumptions were confirming a story about myself that was keeping me stuck in this toxic cycle, so I got rid of all of them. And I put beautiful books on my bookshelves; books about travel and style and architecture and home décor, books that I imagined the future me was reading, novels, just beautiful books that matched the frequency that I wanted to be in.

And those intentional selections changed me. In the moment, it seemed so small. What is a book going to do for me? But every time I looked at that book, I had new thoughts about myself and what was possible. So, be selective with your intellectual consumptions.

Another area that you can look at being more selective in is your time. Within the School of Self-Image membership, we have a whole section on time management, and I walk members through the Dream Atelier process where we really think about how we’re using our time and what is the result of it.

A question you can ask yourself that will really highlight how you’re using your time and if it’s effective is, “If I were to continue to use my time in this way for the rest of my life, would I be happy with the result?” That will reveal a lot to you.

So, for example, right now I’m recording this podcast. I’m being selective with how I use this time. And I can fast forward into the future and look at the result of using my time in this way for the rest of my life. And am I happy with this result? 100%.

The body of work that I am creating over the course of my lifetime, thinking about it from the end of my life, I will be very pleased and delighted with myself. However, yesterday – I’m going to call myself out here – I was hanging out with my mom and dad. We were watching a movie. And I realized that I was procrastinating on unpacking my luggage.

I’ve got into a really good habit. As soon as I get back from a trip, the first thing I do is I unpack. But my parents came in the very next day and so I’ve been putting it off. And so, I asked myself, if I continue to procrastinate on unpacking my luggage for the rest of my life, would I be happy with the result? And the answer was no. I would just have piles of clothes from trips that just were not attended to.

And so, with a curious eye, with love for yourself – this is not for you to beat yourself up with. Please, that doesn’t help any of us. That is not a good use of your time, by the way, beating yourself up. But with a lens of fascination, of getting to know yourself, just be curious about how you’re using your time and if you would be happy with the result if you continue to use it in this way.

The final area that I want to discuss during this episode where we can look at being more selective is with our food consumption. Now, I’ve talked about intellectual consumption, what you put into your brain. Now, we’re going to talk about what you put into your body.

Everything that you select from the foods you eat to what you drink is having an effect. And that effect is it’s either adding to the quality of your health and wellbeing, or it’s taking away.

Another way to think of this is it’s either increasing your vibration, increasing your energy, or it’s decreasing your vibration. It’s decreasing your energy. Now, this could be an entire episode in and of itself. I have a lot to say about this. I have a lot of thoughts about it. But all I want you to think about right now is, “Am I being selective with what I put into my body? Am I reading the labels? Do I even know what’s going into my body? Or am I just consuming things out of habit? Am I consuming things that confirm a self-image that is no longer serving me?”

And if the answer is yes, this is a beautiful opportunity for you to start making new selections to confirm how you want to see yourself. Maybe you want to see yourself as a woman who takes exquisite care of yourself. Maybe you want to see yourself as a healthy and fit woman. Maybe you want to see yourself as someone who loves herself so much that she only wants the best for herself.

What does she select in terms of what she puts into her body? Select things and people and foods and experiences that elevate you, that tune you into a different frequency and reject selecting things that keep you stuck, that keep confirming an identity that no longer serves you.

Let’s all decide right now that we are going to be more selective with what we allow into our lives. Have a beautiful week, everyone. I cannot wait to see you in next week’s episode.

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The Self-Image Manifesto

You’re Invited To Live An Extraordinary Life!

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Knowing better now changes everything about how I live my life and the results I create today.

There was a time when I thought that my past mistakes defined me.

Likewise, I believed that I wasn't enough. Not thin enough. Not worldly enough. Not successful enough. Not a good enough mom, wife, daughter, emergency care nurse …

In fact, many beliefs shaped my world that didn't serve me well.

Thank goodness, I know better now.

When we look back at the past, knowing what we know now, we often find it difficult to understand how we made some of our mistakes or held on to some of the damaging beliefs that influenced our mindset and behaviors.

It's essential to remember that mistakes we made in the past don't define us but rather serve as a guide for growth and transformation.

Our past can read like a rulebook on what not to do, but we have the present and future to create what we want.

Many of us had beliefs and behaviors back then that we would never have now. That's because as we grow and learn more about ourselves, our self-image evolves, and we make different choices today.

Once we grow our self-image, it's almost impossible to reenter the headspace we were in before.

Knowing better now allow us to create rather than fix ourselves Today I know I'm not broken. That wasn't always true for me.

If you had looked at my bookshelves way back then, you'd have seen books like "How to Lose Weight Fast" or "12 Rules For Life" or "Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself." The books on my shelf said loud and clear that I was looking for ways to fix all the things that I thought were wrong with me.

Of course, that thinking only reinforced the negative beliefs that I held so deeply about myself.

I remember when I finally understood that the more I tried to fix myself, the more broken I felt. That trying to fix myself was only keeping me stuck and sometimes even digging me in deeper.

When you finally get it that you're not broken – when you grow into radical self-acceptance and love – that's when you'll be able to start feeling light, joyful, and creative.

That's when you'll be able to start creating the life that you want.

When you're constantly trying to fix what's "wrong" with you, you continually reinforce the belief that you're not good enough. If you believe that you're not good enough, it will be impossible for you to create what you want. As I always say: you can only create as far as the edges that your self-image will allow.

If your self-image is telling you that you're broken and need to be fixed, then you'll notice that you keep recreating the same issues.

You may find yourself saying things like, "I'm stuck. I'm confused. I'll never be able to …" And here's a big telltale sign: You keep procrastinating. You keep waiting and wondering. You keep taking two steps forward, only to take three back.

"When" and "if" statements are the norm in your brain. Things like:

When I lose 30 lbs
When I write my book
If I had more money
If I could only find the right person
If I could just …
When the kids are grow

When you know that you are perfect and wonderful just as you are in the moment – that's when you can start to create.

Self-creation can only ever come from a place of self-acceptance.

And, my friends, creating yourself is an entirely different thing energetically than fixing what you think is wrong.

I can best describe it as using everything about yourself as a canvas. Your flaws and imperfections, as well as your strengths, gifts, assets, and virtues, all come together as one pristine canvas on which you can create the woman you wish to be and the life you want to live.

Let Go of The Past, Be in the Moment, and Create Your Perfect Future We serve ourselves most effectively by not dwelling on past mistakes or mistruths about who we are but instead reigning our energy and self-knowledge into present thoughts, feelings, and actions that serve us.

It is here – at this moment – that we create our reality and define ourselves.

In knowing better now, we can identify and affirm the woman we are today, thereby allowing her (and her entire life) to manifest.

For example:

I am a woman who shows up for others
- So, I am surrounded by loving friends and family.
I am a woman who takes care of herself
- Therefore I am fit and feel healthy.
I am a woman who gets things done.
- So my business is a success.
I am a woman who is lovable and worthy.
- As a result, I have a loving partner in my life.
I am a woman who has healthy boundaries.
- Because of that, I respect myself, and others respect me too.

Creating your life is about making intentional choices every single day.

Suppose I affirm that I am a woman who takes care of herself. In that case, I prove that by (among other things) journaling, meditating, eating healthy, avoiding excessive alcohol consumption, and moving my body by hitting the gym, hiking, or doing yoga every day.

It's about seeing yourself as the woman you want to be, not the woman you thought you were when old thinking got in the way.

Women often get stuck thinking about what went wrong in the past or what may go off-track in the future.

Mindfulness – and thinking from the perspective of our future selves – is so essential to creating the life that we want.

There's an old saying that goes, "If you keep doing what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you've always got." In other words, you must change those habitual, negative thoughts, self-talk, reactions, and actions to get better results today.

Knowing better now allows you to do just that.

Self-Image Makeover

Live Your Life With Style, Flare, and Elegance

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Are you making yourself miserable on the journey to creating your dreams? Are you constantly focused on not being there yet, reminding yourself of all of the things that you think you’re not doing correctly? This means you’re not celebrating, which is kind of like going on a road trip without looking out of the window at the views along the way.

We find it so easy and comfortable to stay focused on where we’re going and what we want to achieve. However, when you can stop and look around at everything you’ve created up until this point, you get to indulge in the best part of the journey: enjoying the ride. And learning to celebrate is going to help you do that.

Tune in this week as I give you five reasons to start bringing more celebration into your everyday. I’m showing you how to start taking a moment to enjoy the journey that you’re on, and why doing so will bring you more confidence, happiness, and ease when it comes to achieving your biggest dreams.

What You Will Discover: * Why the more you celebrate life, the more life celebrates you. * What celebrating myself looks like in my day-to-day life. * Why refusing to celebrate yourself comes from a place of lack and scarcity. * 5 reasons to bring more celebration into your life. * How to start the practice of celebrating yourself every single day in a way that feels authentic to you.

Featured on the Show: * Download the Self-Image Manifesto and be the first to hear about amazing developments in our community! * Learn more about The School of Self-Image and join today! * How to Deal with Doubt * Love the show? Leave a review of the show in Apple Podcasts (click the link to find out how). * Follow me on Instagram! * Find me on Facebook!

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Episode Transcript:

Let me ask you something. Are you making yourself miserable on the journey to creating your dreams? Are you constantly focused on not being there yet, or are you focusing on all of the things that you think you’re not doing well and right?

If so, I’m going to strongly suggest to you that you start celebrating yourself more. And that’s what we’re discussing in this episode. So, let’s dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here’s your hostess, master life coach Tonya Leigh.

Hello, gorgeous friends. I have spent the last hour celebrating myself. Here’s what it looked like. I put on some really good music. I came into my office, and I pulled out my journal. And I really focused on my accomplishments over the last year. And I was quite blown away.

When you’re in the day-to-day activities of your life and you are focused on your goals and the task at hand, sometimes you forget how far you’ve come. And I was feeling it. I had that moment where I thought to myself, “You really just need to stop for a second, take a breath, look around, and take it all in.”

And I’m like a lot of you all. I am much more comfortable working and staying focused on where I’m going and being in that energy. And I love it. It’s fun for me. And I also know that the best part of the journey is enjoying it and slowing down once in a while to look around at where you are right now.

Just like going on a road trip. You can be so fixated on your destination and excited to get there that you fail to see how beautiful the journey is. You don’t look around and see the fields of flowers or the crops that are growing or the children who might be playing in a yard somewhere, or you forget to really take in the music that’s playing on the radio.

Now, I’ve been celebrating for a long time. And I’ve been saying for years, the more you celebrate life, the more life celebrates you. Every day, I celebrate my life. I look around, in fact, I was sitting at – I have a table by my windows that overlooks – you can see all of the Rocky Mountains covered in snow right now. And I was sitting there this morning having my coffee and I just was in awe. And I celebrated that moment.

Yesterday, my fiancé was laughing at me because I planted this little fairy garden with his daughter. And I noticed that the seeds were starting to come up, and I was just so excited. I was like, “Oh my goodness, you have to come look at this.”

And he was saying to me, “I love that you get excited about the smallest things.” And I told him, I’m like, “This isn’t a small thing. This is a seed that came out of the ground because we gave it some TLC and now it is shooting up towards the sun. To me, this isn’t small. This is a wonder.”

So, I’ve been really good at celebrating life. But the one thing I haven’t celebrated enough is myself. And as I was preparing for this podcast, I was thinking about why that is, and why that is for many of us.

I know I’m not alone here. I am sure the majority of you all listening to this are not celebrating yourselves enough. And we need to ask ourselves why. And I did that before I sat down to record this episode. Why has this been such an issue for most of my life? And one of the things that came up for me – and it’s not as big of an issue now, but I’m sure there’s some layers to it – is that I was raised that you shouldn’t brag about yourself, you should play down your accomplishments, you should be humble.

Which humble means to see yourself as less-than. And I understand the energy around that because I never think I’m better than anyone. And I’ve come to learn that I’m not lesser than either. I spent more years thinking I was less than people than better than people. And we’re all amazing humans who’ve just made different choices.

But I realize, not wanting to celebrate because you’re afraid to come across as braggy is coming from a place of lack and scarcity. It’s saying, “If I celebrate my accomplishments, it’s somehow robbing you of yours.” And I don’t think that’s true any longer.

I believe that there is more than enough for all of us, and we all have our own unique stage of life that we’re being asked to step up on. So, for me now, I realize that that’s not the biggest reason why I don’t celebrate.

For me now, the main reason is that I’m very future-focused. The moment I achieve one goal, I’m off to the races to the next. I’m like, “Okay, let’s go.” And I don’t take enough time to just really take it in.

And so, my word of the year this year is impressive, and one of the ways that I want to impress myself is by celebrating myself more along this journey, before I’ve hit the goal, before I’ve achieved the result. I want to just stop and celebrate the little things that I’m doing every single day and that I’m accomplishing that, a lot of times, I’ll be honest, I just look over it.

And one of the things that I’ve been thinking about recently is this dance between your present and your future. Because the future and the past only exist in your mind. There’s only ever the present. But my mind space these days is spent a lot in the future, visualizing, thinking about where I’m going. And I believe that is an important part of the puzzle of living an extraordinary life.

I’m thinking about my future in the present moment. However, I want to spend more time this year really appreciating what is right now while also being excited and having plans for the future. And celebrating myself is one of the ways that I feel like we can have a more fluid dance between today in this moment and the future that we’re creating.

Another reason why I think it’s so hard for women to celebrate themselves is that we have developed a mental habit of constantly looking for what we think we’re not doing well enough, or we are constantly focused on having not achieved the result yet. And so, that energy constantly puts us in a state of lack and anxiety and fear.

So, I want to share with you five reasons why you should celebrate yourself. Number one, when you celebrate yourself, you are more attractive. Now, I want to be very clear here. This does not necessarily mean that you walk into a room full of people and you start talking about how much money you’ve made or how beautiful you are.

It might mean that you celebrate those things. But here’s what’s most important. You have to check the energy driving those kinds of celebration. What I have noticed is that it really is about the energy behind your celebrations. And I believe this is why bragging has gotten so much bad press, because a lot of times, the people that we’ve heard talking about their accomplishments, it’s coming from a place of insecurity.

It's like, “Hey, I just made this much money.” Or “Hey, I just got this promotion.” And what’s driving that is their need to appear better than because they feel less than. So, it’s a way of them compensating. And that’s not what I’m talking about.

When you’re just really proud of yourself and you just want to share it, and not only as a way to just honor yourself but maybe to inspire other people, maybe to let other people know that “Hey, listen, I’m celebrating myself. And listen, if I can do it, so can you.” When it’s coming from that energy, it is felt. It is noted. It is understood. And it’s a very attractive energy.

And when I say attractive, I mean what you attract into your life. When you’re in a place of celebration, your energetic frequency is very different than when you are in a place of beating yourself up and constantly focusing on what you think you’re not doing well enough.

All you have to do is to imagine you’re at a party, and there’s one woman who is on the dancefloor, dancing her heart out to the music, not caring what people are saying, who’s looking. It’s a dance between her and I guess you could say the universe, the divine. She’s just doing it because she’s letting life flow through her. That’s pretty attractive.

We all look at this woman, we’re like, “Whoa, we want what she’s having,” versus, “Maybe the woman is dancing, but she’s doing it to be seen. She’s doing it for the attention. She’s doing it out of insecurity.

And then there’s the other woman who’s just not dancing at all. She’s over in the corner. You don’t even notice her. Think about which one of those women are more attractive in terms of the energy that she is putting out into the world. And it’s like a boomerang. Whatever you put out comes back to you.

And so, when you celebrate from a pure place of just being proud of yourself and wanting to share it in hopes of maybe having a positive impact on other people, inspiring them, but not doing it because you’re trying to be better than, celebrating yourself out of a place of love and joy and excitement is a beautiful, beautiful thing, my friends.

The second reason why you should celebrate yourself more is that when you celebrate yourself, your energy is flowing towards what you want to experience more of. When you are beating yourself up, when you are telling yourself that you’re not good enough, when you are always thinking that you could be better and you’re focusing on the lack of the result that you want, it’s like you are facing north when all of your dreams are south.

There’s an old saying in the personal development space that says, “Your energy flows where your attention goes.” So, if your attention is going towards denying yourself of feeling proud of yourself, if it’s going towards constantly beating yourself up for what you think you’re not doing right and well, then that’s where all of your energy is going.

And wherever your energy is going, that is what is creating your life. So, by celebrating, it’s like stopping the momentum of your energy moving in that direction and it starts flowing towards what you want to experience more of.

Basically, when you celebrate yourself, you’re telling the universe that you’re ready for more. And this goes along with being attractive. You start attracting more things to celebrate. And so, pay attention to where you’re focusing your attention because that’s where all of your energy is going.

Is it flowing towards what you want more of? If not, you need to change your focus to focus on what you want to experience more of. As Rumi says, “What you seek is seeking you.” And a lot of you are seeking more things to not like about yourself because that’s what you are focused on. Basically, as I said earlier, it’s just a really bad mental habit that does not serve you at all.

The other reason why you should celebrate yourself more is because when you celebrate yourself, it increases your confidence. So, confidence is created in your brain, is created with your thoughts. So, think about it this way. If your thinking about yourself is constantly negative and you’re focused on what you’re not accomplishing, it decreases your confidence.

I was coaching a woman not too long ago who is trying to break through six figures in her business. And she was telling me all of the things she thinks she’s doing terribly. And I asked her, I said, “Tell me what you’re doing really well right now. List out some accomplishments that you’ve had in the past year.” And she stumbled at first when I asked her that because she’s so not used to thinking like that.

But when she started to really think about it and come up with all of the things that she has achieved, and when she did that, she had this a-ha moment. She said to me, “I have so much evidence even from just the past year of how I can absolutely do this.” And she left that conversation with confidence to go out there and create the result that she wants.

Last week, I did an episode on dealing with doubt and this is one of the ways actually that I didn’t include in that episode. But you can definitely use celebrating yourself to overcome doubt. I know I do.

Sometimes, when I create a goal for myself and all that doubt comes up, I will literally just sit down and write out my accomplishments to show myself that. “Hey, listen, look at what you’ve done. Look at how capable you are. Look at what you’ve overcome.” To provide myself with evidence that I can absolutely keep going forward into my future.

That is one of the beautiful things of celebrating yourself. So, if you’re someone that struggles with confidence, how often are you celebrating yourself? Chances are, not very much, if at all. And this would be a great place for you to start. Take out a piece of paper and write down all of your accomplishments.

And if your brain immediately goes to, “Well, I haven’t really achieved that much,” that is such BS. If you’ve made it to this point in your human journey, you’ve had accomplishments. Force yourself to come up with at least 50. You should be able to come up with probably 1000 if we looked at the little things that you accomplish every day over the course of your lifetime.

But celebrating yourself increases your confidence. And finally, when you celebrate, you’re focused on the journey. Or you could say you’re focused on the process. One of the reasons why so many of you give up way too soon on your dreams and your goals is you’re so focused on the outcome and you’re constantly feeling the lack of not being there yet, and you think your life will be better when you get there, but you’re making yourself miserable along the way.

And I love what Abraham Hicks says, “There is no happy ending to an unhappy journey. So, I’m always thinking about my future self, as I told you earlier. I always have one foot in the future and one in the present. But a lot of times, I’m leaning way more into the future.

But even so, I’m always thinking about how my future self feels. What is her energy? What is her usual emotional state of being? And what I know is my future self is always celebrating, especially herself. She’s always high-fiving herself. And so, I bring that energy back into the present moment.

My practice is to practice being her now. So, while I’m all for big goals, I love creating extraordinary goals, the reason why I feel like I just keep going when others may have given up by now is that I am focused on the journey, on the process, the day-to-day of the becoming of me.

And so, it’s something I get to wake up and look forward to doing every single day, knowing that if I focus on enjoying the journey, showing up for the journey, that the result will come. It may not come when I think it’s going to come. And it may not happen how I think it’s going to happen. But I just have so much evidence now to prove to myself that this is how it works.

Plus, there is no upside to making yourself miserable right now. There is no upside to denying yourself of your own self-love and self-appreciation. It just holds you back. It’s like putting the brakes on the car when you’re trying to drive south to where your dreams are. So, focus on the journey by celebrating yourself along the way.

So, you may be wondering, how do you celebrate yourself? And so, I want to share with you some ideas of how I do it, how some of my friends do it. And at the end of the day, it really comes down to what makes you feel celebrated?

One of the things you can ask yourself is, “How do you like to celebrate others?” Do you like to take them to dinner? Do you like to buy them a gift? Do you like to tell them how amazing they are? What do you enjoy doing for others in celebration of them?

You may want to ask yourself the opposite of that, how do you enjoy others celebrating you? Do you like when they surprise you with a vacation? Do you like when they send you flowers? Because chances are, that is going to tell you how you can celebrate yourself. Although, it’s hard to surprise ourselves, but we can send ourselves flowers. We can schedule ourselves vacations.

But the first thing I’m going to encourage you to do is to write down your celebrations. You can do this daily. You can do it weekly. Or you can do it monthly. Or you can do all three.

I used to do this more on a daily basis. Now, I tend to do it on a monthly basis. I like to look back over the past month. Because sometimes, when you’re in the day-to-day, you don’t realize how much you’ve accomplished until a month has gone by and you can see it from a distance of, like, “Wow, I did all these things this month.”

And I also want to add in too, celebrating yourself isn’t always just about accomplishments. I’ve been talking about accomplishments a lot on this episode. But it can be celebrating qualities that you love about yourself, how loving you are, how persistent you are, how powerful you are, how kind you are.

So, think about not just the accomplishments that you’ve had, because you’re so much more than your accomplishments. You’re worthy even without your accomplishments. But you need to give those some weight too. And at the same time, what is it that you just love about yourself, and you want to honor within yourself?

So, write them down. That’s the first thing. The other thing that I love to do is I love to text my friends. When I have something to celebrate about myself, like something I’ve achieved, I will just text them.

And I have the most extraordinary group of friends who love that we celebrate ourselves. I have one friend who constantly is texting me her celebrations and it just makes me so happy for her. I love that she is making this a practice. And I’ve also seen a result of her celebrating herself and the results that she’s creating in her life. It’s actually a fascinating thing.

Another thing I like to do – this is so silly, but I love it. I love high-fiving myself in the mirror. Like, at night, I’ll just high-five myself, I’ll be like, “Look at you. Look at what you did today. I’m so proud of you.”

And sometimes, it might just be high-fiving myself for getting out of bed. That’s how I felt when I was sick at the beginning of the year. I was just like, “High-five, girl, you got through this day. I’m so proud of you.”

My good friend Brooke, I love what she does. This is the finniest thing. She will be out, and she’ll just take a glass and cheers herself in the head. She’s like, “Cheers to you, Brooke.” It’s so fun.

You can throw yourself a party. You can invite your friends over and you can all celebrate each other. You can encourage this in your friends, in a safe space, knowing that we’re doing it in honor of ourselves. And it also can be an inspiration to each other.

You can send yourself flowers. I do that sometimes. I’m just like, “You know what? I deserve some flowers. I’m going to celebrate myself.” And then they show up at the door and I act like I’m surprised, “The love of my life just sent me flowers.” Because guess what? I am the love of my life. And I want you to be the love of your life.

You can write yourself a thank-you letter, thanking yourself for all that you’ve done, all that you are, and you can literally mail it to yourself. And you can take yourself on a date, you can take yourself out to dinner. These are just some of the ways that I love to celebrate myself.

But think about how you like to be celebrated, or how you like to celebrate others. Because you may find some other gems in there that I haven’t even mentioned. But the important thing is that you make it a conscious, deliberate practice to celebrate yourself often. Because remember, when you celebrate, life celebrates you back. Have a beautiful week, my friends. I will see you in the next episode. Cheers.

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When we embrace the fabulous flavors of life, the less palatable moments are made more manageable.

Life is magnificent, imposing, full of magic, hope, and possibility. It’s also rife with challenges, loss, struggle, and – ideally – personal growth, which (let’s be honest), typically comes with a few growing pains.

When we are caught up in life’s daily doing, it can be easy to lose sight of the grace and abundance with which we are blessed. When life gets tough, we sometimes forget all the beauty surrounding and sustaining us.

The fabulous flavors of life can quickly get lost in the sauce, which is why it’s so essential to make an effort to create them, embrace them, have gratitude for them, and save them up for the certainty of a rainy day.

There are a few ways that I embrace the flavors of life – perhaps you have a few of your own. I’d love to hear about them!

Practice the art of doing nothing A friend of mine once told me that someone once asked her, “Don’t you ever just do nothing?” She answered, “Of course- all the time. I lay in the hammock and read a book or listen to music or watch a movie on Netflix.”

To which her friend replied, “No. I mean NOTHING. Like, just sit and BE.”

Surprised by this, my friend thought about it and realized that she struggled with the art of doing nothing.

Many of us struggle with the art of doing nothing. There was a time that it was definitely something I grappled with. I felt I was lazy, getting behind, or losing ground if I was idle.

That’s normal. Many of us come from a culture that says we have to go go go all the time – and many of us feel guilty if we are not working, producing, or doing something every minute of every day.

Doing nothing gives you a chance to let your mind wander, for creativity to unfold, and for you to get your mind and body into a relaxed, stress-free state.

In practicing the art of doing nothing, you can find the beauty and joy in stillness and bathe your soul in a healing balm of tranquility.

Make every meal an occasion In the united states, most of us tend to rush through meals - always on the go and always in a hurry; we rarely sit down to really enjoy our meals. The one exception to that may be dinner.

In other cultures, where there tends to be less obesity, stress, and heart disease, folks enjoy their meals.

Taking the time to sit down, have a moment of gratitude before eating, and calmly consume your meals – perhaps with the company of loved ones and good conversation– allows your body to enter into a parasympathetic state which allows for healthier digestion.

In addition to the physical health benefits of sitting down to enjoy one’s meals, there is a mind-spirit satisfaction of appreciation, enjoyment, and gratitude that comes with really savoring the delicious bounty that we have to nourish our bodies.

Take time to read Not only does reading spark your imagination and grow you intellectually, but reading is also a relaxing, fun, feel-good activity.

Through reading, you can travel to any time or place in the universe and witness different cultures, lifestyles, and perspectives. You can also experience life from thousands of different angles, feel all the feels, and infinitely explore all that the world has to offer and a lot of what it doesn’t.

I think George R.R. Martin put it best when he said, “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies . . . The man who never reads lives only one.”

Seek out culture and soak it up Embracing cultural activities is a beautiful way to get more involved in the community and increase your art knowledge. Getting your art on can give your soul more depth, more passion, and an artistic flair that can make you feel vibrant and alive.

If it’s impossible to attend a concert or visit a museum, you can access plenty of culture right at home through your computer, home library, music collection, or even television.

Nurture Yourself in Nature Many cultures have long recognized the importance of the natural world to human health.

In the 1980s, the Japanese embraced a form of eco-therapy called shinrin-yoku (“forest bathing” or “taking in the forest atmosphere”). In the following decade, researchers began studying the physiological benefits of forest bathing, providing the science to support what we innately know: time spent immersed in nature is good for us.

Even if you live in a big city, you can seek out nature or create space for it. Here are a few ideas:

Fill your home with plants or perhaps an aquarium
Create a lush garden that draws hummingbirds, butterflies, dragonflies, and bees into your yard
Head out for a day of hiking at your nearest hiking trail park
Take nature-rich vacations to places like Costa Rica, Yosemite National Park, the Adirondack Mountains of New York, New Zealand, or Hawaii

Take it slow and steady Similar to mindful eating is the concept of just taking most everything in life slow and steady. Take your time with your morning routine.

Take moments out of your busy day to sit in mediation or take a long, leisurely walk.

Don’t rush. Take it easy. Know that time is your friend. Your overall well-being will benefit.

Schedule in Time for Pleasure If you follow my podcast, you may have heard my recent episode on using your calendar to change your beliefs. In that episode, I talk about many things, but one of the most important ideas is scheduling time for yourself and pleasure. By that, I mean literally blocking out time on your calendar for self-care.

If you want to be someone who shows up consistently for yourself, you can use your calendar to make that happen and thereby create evidence that you are a woman who loves and cares for herself.

And what does that do? You guessed it. It transforms your self-image.

Fill Yourself Up With Life’s Many Flavors As cliché as it may sound, practicing the “joy of living” is one of the most fundamental components of a life well-lived.

Think of it as a savings account. If you fill your account with joy, abundance, laughter, sensual pleasures, connection, love, warmth, and positivity, then you’ll have all that to rely on for a rainy day.

These flavors of life will not only bolster you when times are tough, they will create a fullness in your life that creates a life well-lived and loved.

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No matter who you are or how far along you are on the personal development path, inevitably at some point we all experience doubt: that feeling of uncertainty around what we want to do, create, or become. But when I was researching this episode, I came across a quote by Dan Brulé that says, “If you’re going to doubt anything in life, doubt your own limitations.”

I’m sure you’re familiar with this feeling. You decide to go after a big goal, or you’re facing a big decision you’re about to make and then, all of a sudden, doubt starts creeping in. We’ve all been there, but in this episode, I’m sharing with you how I have learned to deal with doubt over the years, so you can replace that feeling with something more useful.

Tune in this week as I share a very recent example of a time when I experienced serious doubt about something and decided to do it anyway. I’m showing you how entertaining your doubt only serves to keep you spinning, and how to start arguing for your success, instead of worrying about your possible failures.

What You Will Discover: * How doubt keeps us in split energy, suspended between belief and disbelief. * Why having doubt doesn’t mean that anything’s gone wrong. * What we can learn from what our doubtful side is telling us to do. * Why your brain wants you to stay playing small, comfortable, and safe. * How to start arguing for yourself instead of against yourself when doubt comes up for you.

Featured on the Show: * Download the Self-Image Manifesto and be the first to hear about amazing developments in our community! * Learn more about The School of Self-Image and join today! * Dan Brulé * Love the show? Leave a review of the show in Apple Podcasts (click the link to find out how). * Follow me on Instagram! * Find me on Facebook!

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Episode Transcript:

No matter who you are or how far along you are on the personal development path, inevitably we all, at some point, experience doubt; that feeling of uncertainty, of disbelief in what we want to do, create, have, or become. But I like what Dan Brulé says, “If you’re going to doubt anything in life, doubt your own limitations.”In this episode, I’m going to share with you how I personally deal with doubt, so let’s dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here’s your hostess, master life coach Tonya Leigh.

Hello, gorgeous friends. How are you doing today? I’m getting ready to leave for Miami. I have been getting a lot of things done ahead of time, so that when I get to Florida, I can really focus on the event that will have taken place by the time you listen to this. That’s so exciting.

And do you know what I experienced a lot of when I decided to do this event? Doubt. You all know what that feels like, right? You decide to go after a big goal or you’re facing a big decision and you’re about to make it, and then all of a sudden, doubt starts creeping in. So, in this episode, I want to share with you how I deal with doubt.

When I think about everything that I teach, I go through a process. And sometimes, it takes me many years to figure out how to overcome something. And that’s what I bring back to you, to share with you, in hopes that it will support you in whatever you’re dealing with. So, let’s talk about how to deal with doubt.

Here’s what Wikipedia says about doubt, “Doubt is a mental state in which the mind remains suspended between two or more contradictory propositions, unable to be certain of any of them. Doubt, on an emotional level, is indecision between belief and disbelief. It may involve uncertainty, distrust, or lack of conviction on certain facts, actions, motives, or decisions. Doubt can result in delaying or rejecting relevant action out of concern for mistakes or missed opportunities.”

To me, that is the best description ever of doubt, especially when it says that it’s when you are suspended between belief and disbelief. When it comes to doubt, we can doubt our knowledge. Do I know enough to move forward? Do I know enough to teach this topic? Do I know enough to make this decision?

We can also doubt our abilities, “Do I have the ability to ski down that mountain? Do I have the ability to sing the song? Do I have the ability to write a book?” And then, we can doubt our instincts, “Can I trust myself enough to make this decision? Can I trust that inner voice that’s trying to guide me?”

Because when it comes to instincts, there’s always split energy. There’s a part of you, that intuitive part of you that’s like, “Do this.” But then, there’s that other voice that says, “That’s going to be the wrong choice. Better not do that.”

And so, what ends up happening when we listen to doubt is we end up not moving. We end up stuck. So, when it comes to doubt, the first thing that I’ve learned to do is the opposite of what doubt tells me to do.

So, for example, when I decided that I wanted to do an event, immediately I had doubt. I had doubt whether I could sell the event, could I get people to come? I had doubt as to whether I could put together an extraordinary experience, even though I have evidence that I’ve done it before. It’s crazy, right?

I had doubt around being able to find the right team to help me pull off this kind of event. So, the doubt was telling me, “Just don’t do it, Tonya. Just wait until it’s all perfect in your head. Wait until you have all of the answers.”

But the problem with that is, I have to take action to get the answers. Doubt is overcome through action because, as you take action, you learn more. You get more clarity. And the best part is that you gather evidence to overcome your doubt. You’re proving to yourself that you are capable, that you are knowledgeable enough, that you can trust your instincts.

So, that’s the first thing that you should do whenever you have doubt come up. You should do the opposite of what it tells you to do. Because remember, doubt is there to keep you where you are. The brain doesn’t like to change. It wants you to stay comfortable and safe and cozy.

So, the moment you make a decision to move your life in a new direction, you’re going to have doubt. Also, when you have doubt, know that nothing’s gone wrong. That is not a reason not to do it. In fact, it’s a reason to do it.

I think some of you believe that there are people out there who are just confident 100% of the time, they never have doubt. And so, when you have doubt, you think it means that you shouldn’t move forward, that you shouldn’t take action. When, if everyone’s being truthful, unless you’re a sociopath, everyone experiences doubt.

There are moments in our lives when we all experience a lack of confidence. Why? Because we all have human brains. So, having doubt is a part of the process. When it occurs, know that it’s normal.

The second thing that I do when I am experiencing doubt – and this is a big one, you all – is I spend a lot more time arguing for myself versus against myself. So, what does that look like?

Well, let’s just take my event, for example. I spent a lot of time arguing for what I wanted to believe, that I am capable, that there are so many women who want to get together within my community, that they want to have this experience, that I could find an extraordinary team, which I did.

And because I spent more time arguing for myself versus against myself, that energy is what inspired me to continue to take action to create the event. Now, I want you all to think about this. Had I listened to the doubt and argued against myself and what my desire was, I wouldn’t have gone on to put the offer into the world of, “I’m hosting an event.” Which ended up selling out within hours. It was crazy. But I would have never had that experience had I listened to the doubt.

Now, let me tell you, there have been times in my life where I have moved forward, and I have failed. But do you know what I learned in those moments? I learned about what worked, what didn’t work. I learned more about who I needed to become. I learned about how to deal with failure and rejection and that discomfort, which only made me stronger, which set me up for more success later on.

So, there are no failures when you learn from them, and you grow from them. So, even if you doubt something and you argue for yourself and it inspires you to take action and you fail, you don’t get the result you want, that is also a part of the process.

There is no straight line to success. Often, on the way to success, you’re going to have a lot of failures along the way. And those failures, if you’re not mindful, will trick you into believing your own doubt. But you’re so much bigger than that.

So, whenever you’re doubting yourself – maybe you’re wanting to lose weight and you decide that you are committed, you’re going all in, and all of a sudden, the doubt arises. And remember, doubt is when the mind is suspended between belief and disbelief. That’s all it is.

So, in that moment, you can look to your past to prove to yourself why it can’t happen, to disbelieve in yourself and your dreams, or you can look to your future, and you can argue for why it can and will happen. And that energy that you create in loving yourself so much that you’re willing to argue and fight for yourself, not against yourself, will be the energy that drives you forward to lose the weight.

So, spend time arguing for yourself, fighting for yourself when that doubt arises. And in fact, just pull out a piece of paper and write down all of the reasons why you can do it, why it is possible for you, why you are capable, how you are knowledgeable enough, whatever you’re struggling with, create the case for yourself.

And finally, when it comes to overcoming and dealing with doubt, you must consistently practice acting from your future because, think about it, the future you is the version of you who has created the results that you’re wanting to create and who is being who you want to be.

And so, in order to create those results and be her, you have to practice being her now and coming from that energy. So, here’s a great example – I find that example are always the best, right?

So, I experienced a tremendous amount of doubt when I moved to Denver two years ago. I was experiencing such a big shift in my identity, and I was, like, quantum leaping at that point. And how it presented itself for me was I decided that I was going to get a penthouse. And I had a big gap of cognitive dissonance.

For three years, I had been living with my ex-partner in his house. So, I wasn’t paying rent, however I paid for everything else, plus. But when it came to paying for a place, I had this belief that I could not afford rent. Which now, looking back, is so crazy and silly because the amount of money I was spending when I was with him, I could have paid four people’s rent.

But my brain, I was quantum leaping my identity when I moved to Denver. And so, I went and looked at several places. And when I found the place that really spoke to me and discovered that it was a penthouse and it came with a penthouse price, I had so much doubt. So much doubt.

The doubt told me things like, “Who do you think you are? You can’t afford this…” which was not true, “You should get something less,” right? And that had been the voice that I’ve been working on overcoming for so long, like, “You don’t deserve this. Who do you think you are?”

You know, when you grow up in a trailer, there’s a money mindset that, even today, I’m still unravelling. I still find things popping up and like, “Oh, that’s interesting.” But back to my example, it was an opportunity. It was like I was at the crossroads between belief and disbelief.

And I’m like, “You know, I can spin my wheels in fighting for why this isn’t possible and why I shouldn’t do it. Or I can spend time arguing for what I want.” Because what I deeply wanted was this space. I had never lived in a space like this. It was so beautiful.

And I thought about my future self and what she would say and what she would do in that moment. And she was like, “Girl, get the penthouse. Let’s go.” And I did. And I cannot tell you all, being in that surrounding for over a year changed me.

You know, I talk about surroundings being a part of what shapes our self-image. And it’s like I made that decision, and then I lived into it. And that decision changed me. It provided evidence for who I wanted to be, versus making a decision that would have kept confirming how I had been seeing myself.

And now, it’s just my new norm to be in this kind of surrounding. You know, I talk about self-image being like a thermostat. However you see yourself, you’re going to create on a subconscious level. Well, now I see myself in that type of space.

And so, since then, I’ve moved into a space that’s even better. And it’s like we get to keep increasing what is normal for us, what our new normal are. But in order to do that, you can’t listen to the doubt. You can’t let the doubt stop you. You have to learn to doubt your own doubt. You have to spend time arguing for yourself and why you can do it.

You have to do the opposite of what the doubt tells you to do and then continuously act from your future. And as you do, my friends, you’re going to be collecting more and more evidence for what you want to see. And you’ll be attracting completely new opportunities, people, and things into your experience.

So, when your mind is suspended between belief and disbelief, you have a choice. You can spend a lot of time in the disbelieving. You can spend a lot of time thinking about, “What if this doesn’t work out?” You can spend a lot of time thinking about why it’s not possible for you.

And if you do that, just know that you will never get to experience the greatness of who you really are and what’s available to you. I want you to spend time in the believing part of it, looking at why it is possible for you, why you can do it, and arguing your case for your greatness, for your extraordinary self.

And when you do that, you’re going to be in a completely different energetic state, which will drive you to do different things, that will lead to very different results. And because I’m always setting big, extraordinary goals for myself, it feels like I’m always going through this process.

There’s usually not a day that goes by that I don’t have some kind of doubt. Maybe the doubt is, “Am I going to be able to get this all done today?” Maybe the doubt it, “Can I handle all of this?” Our doubt comes up in many different ways.

Maybe the doubt for me is, “Am I going to be able to lift this heavy of a weight?” I’ve been in the gym a lot recently. And what I can tell you is that, in those moments, we can get to work on believing in ourselves. And that’s what I do. And that’s why I’ve been able to create the results that I’ve created. And they’re only getting better.

Why? Because I’m getting better at dealing with my own doubt. I don’t spend a lot of time ruminating in my doubt anymore. I used to. And my results were a lot slower to achieve in those moments. I just don’t spend time arguing against myself anymore.

If I’m going to spend my energy on something, I want it to be arguing for myself. and I spend more time in my future and acting from that place and making decisions from that place than thinking about my past. That’s all. That’s the only difference.

So, the next time you experience doubt, here’s what I want you to do. Do the opposite of what the doubt’s telling you to do. That’s number one. Then spend time arguing for yourself. And then finally, think about your future self and act from her mindset, from her energy. What would she tell you to do?

And if you do those things – the doubt is never going to go away, especially if you’re committed to your own growth. But you are going to get better at dealing with it. And you’re going to be collecting evidence as to what happens when you deal with doubt in a way that serves you.

In closing, I want you to remember this. Who you are underneath the doubt is so much bigger than the doubt itself. And that’s the part I want you to learn to access. Listen to her. Trust her. Do what she tells you to do. Have a great week, everyone, and I can’t wait to see you in next week’s episode.

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"What we do not claim remains invisible. That is why the process of personal transformation — the true work of spiritual growth, whether couched in religious terms or not — is the only antidote to the pernicious effects of society's backlash against genuine female empowerment." - Marianne Williamson, A Woman's Worth

A woman's worth is continually subjected to societal expectations around beauty, weight, motherhood, relationships, career paths, money, and more in today's world. And the worst part is that most women are convinced of the soundness of such judgments.

After all, we've been hearing all kinds of crazy rules about what it means to be a "good woman" since we were little girls.

I hear from women every day who have bought into the ridiculous notions that the world has imposed upon them.

I hear absurd things like:

I'm too fat
I'm not pretty enough
I don't want kids, and I know that makes me a horrible person, but …
I'll never make as much money as my husband does
I feel selfish taking time out to get my nails done, let alone go in for a massage
I shouldn't spend money on that - it's too frivolous
I feel like a terrible mother because I don't have time to make anything for the school bake sale
Oh, my husband would never let me do that
I'm just not savvy enough to run my own business
I don't have the strength to do something like that
I know I was a b&#@h, but I had to say something. I tried to be nice about it …
He interrupted me, but I guess that's OK – I mean, he is my supervisor

Aaargh! Enough! When I hear women saying these kinds of things, it just breaks my heart. And, it makes me mad.

Look, I know that it's tough to find and maintain a sense of self-worth when we live in constant fear of whether or not we're being kind enough, sweet enough, present enough, lady-like enough, mother-like enough … just enough.

Enough to meet what societal standards say is enough to be a worthy woman.

Nonetheless, to find and appreciate our value and worth as women, we must look within ourselves and celebrate all that we are.

We have to push aside those old, outdated messages that attempt to cage us into what society believes a woman should be.

A Woman's Worth Is The Whole Of Who She Is We are so much more than our bodies, jobs, behaviors, or roles in life. We are more than our age, weight, or beauty; more than the amount of money we make, our relationship status, or what our primary caregivers, church leaders, teachers, and society told us we should be.

A genuinely empowered woman knows her worth is beyond measure.

Your self-image measures your self-worth, which is the only thing that should define the rules for you.

With self-worth comes a boatload of confidence, self-esteem, and personal development.

You, my friends, are free to create a new definition of your worth, one thought, one feeling, and one action at a time.

You are free to enter any profession, have kids or not, be partnered or not, want what you want, follow your dreams and live a life you love.

You get to see yourself through a much wider lens than society would usually permit - a lens that captures the totality of your being.

As you continue to see yourself as powerful, deserving, whole, and worthy, you'll enjoy so much more of what the world has to offer.

So how can you take back your power? How can you define your worth as a woman?

Here are a few ideas – take them and run with them. Then, add a few of your own!

Stop comparing yourself to other women No matter how many affirmations you do or journal entries you make, you'll never feel worthy if you continue to see yourself as less than, or more than, another.

We all do it sometimes – and it gets easier and easier with handy little tools like Instagram – but we've got to kick that habit to the curb.

Remember, you are unique, special, and terrific – as each of us is.

Practicing gratitude, focusing on your strengths, and celebrating others can go a very long way toward getting you out of the me-compared-to-her cycle of misery.

The comparison trap can only offer anxiety, rumination, and perhaps overspending as you try to keep up with Ms. Jones.

Free yourself from the better than/ less than the trap in any way that you can.

If It Feels Good, Do It You get to decide what feels good and what doesn't. That means you also get to decide what you will and won't allow in your life.

Your worth is not determined by what society says is or is not acceptable behavior.

And, by the way, you also get to want what you want without apology.

You know what they say about opinions … everybody has one. If you live your life by the opinions of others, you might make them feel better (for the millisecond they are taking time out to think about you) – but at your own expense.

Not sure what feels good? Don't know what you want?

What if you start by figuring out what you DON'T want?

This is where a good journal will come in handy.

Stop Beating Yourself Up Negative self-talk will only serve to bring you down and trap you there. What you say to yourself and how you say it is potent.

Do any of these sound familiar?

I'm so disorganized
I feel so scattered
I'm completely overwhelmed
I can't believe I was so stupid
Ugh, what an idiot
OMG, how could I have forgotten that? I'm so irresponsible
I'm so fat- I could never wear something like that

Hurtful sentiments like these are as equally damaging (if not more so) as if you took a baseball bat and beat yourself up with it.

Would you say such things to your sweet little niece, daughter, granddaughter, or the little girl next door?

Of course, you wouldn't! So, I'm wondering … Why on earth would you say such things to yourself?

Treat yourself like the precious, worthy being that you are – with the utmost care, kindness, and love.

We all mess up sometimes. We all get sideswiped by the images we see in glossy magazines and Instagram.

What if next time you took a moment to reframe?

For example, if you have a negative thought like, "I'm completely overwhelmed" you might reframe it by saying, " Look at all I've accomplished!"

Only You Can Define Your Worth as a Woman As long as we live our truth and express our lives fully, there's no limit to our worth.

We are servants only to our dreams, not to society's expectations. To live in complete freedom is to live the life we choose. Without limitation, shame or justification.

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As you’ll know from listening to this podcast, your self-image is creating your entire experience of life, and your beliefs are the biggest contributor to shaping your self-image. Now, how you choose to spend your time can either serve to confirm or change your beliefs, and that’s what we’re working on today.

If you want to be someone who shows up consistently for herself, you might spend time journaling, working, and going to the gym. However, if you look back and see that you’ve spent hours scrolling through Instagram, not getting dressed, and eating junk, you will struggle to believe you’re showing up for yourself in the best way possible. Now, this is where your calendar comes in.

This work isn’t about judging yourself, but being fascinated by what you can learn, so tune in this week to discover how to start using your calendar to change your beliefs. You have an amazing opportunity to collect evidence for what you want to believe about yourself. And if you don’t like what your current calendar is saying about you, I’m sharing instead how to start scheduling your time with your desired result in mind.

What You Will Discover: * Why the ways you choose to spend your time are so important. * How to see whether the way you spend your days is confirming beliefs about yourself that you truly want to believe. * What the process of scheduling my life around my self-image looks like in my own life. * How you should be spending your time if you want to change your self-image. * The busy work and faux action I see so many people engaging in that don’t build the belief required to change their self-image. * How to start using your calendar to collect evidence that reinforces what you want to believe about yourself.

Featured on the Show: * Download the Self-Image Manifesto and be the first to hear about amazing developments in our community! * Learn more about The School of Self-Image and join today! * 40: How to Leisurely Hustle * 228: Being Sold on Yourself * Love the show? Leave a review of the show in Apple Podcasts (click the link to find out how). * Follow me on Instagram! * Find me on Facebook!

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Episode Transcript:

Every day, how you use your time is confirming beliefs you have about yourself. And the beliefs that you have about yourself are shaping your self-image. And as you know, if you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while, your self-image is creating your entire life. Which is why, in this episode, I want to talk with you about how to use your calendar to change your beliefs.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here’s your hostess, master life coach Tonya Leigh.

Hello, my friends. I’m so excited because, by the time you listen to this, I will be in Miami for our first ever School of Self-Image event. I have had so much fun visualizing and planning and anticipating this event. When I thought about creating this experience, I didn’t want it to be just another, “You come, and you sit in a big boardroom and people speak and you take a lot of notes, and you consume a lot of information and then you go home.”

I focused on the energy of the event. I used the exact same three pillars that we teach in the School of Self-Image around our mindset and our style and our surroundings to change us. I used that same concept in creating this event.

So, it’s been so much fun for me, everything from thinking about the music we play and the food we serve and the décor that we use, and just the little details that can have a big impact. Because I am always thinking about creating the energy of our futures in the present. And that’s what I focused on in creating this event.

And so, I’m sharing this with you only because I want you to think about that same concept. When you think about your future, what is the energy of that future that you can begin to bring into your life today? Because that will change how you see yourself. And when you change how you see yourself, your life outside of you begins to change.

So, yeah, I’m really excited about this event and I’m sure I’ll be sharing more about it in future podcasts. But for today, I’m going to talk about how to use your calendar to change your beliefs.

How you spend your time is confirming beliefs about yourself. I mean, just look at your day and how you’ve spent your time thus far, and what beliefs has it confirmed about yourself?

I’ll give you an example. This morning, I woke up and I journaled. I had a cup of tea and I got to work. I have been doing some final touches on the content for the event. I am now recording this podcast. I had a meeting with my community manager. And so, when I look at just this portion of my day and the beliefs that it confirms about me, I need to ask myself, do I like what it’s saying? Do I like how I’m spending my time and what it says about me?

And for this small portion of my day, the answer is 100% yes. It’s confirming beliefs such as, “I am a woman who lives on purpose.” It’s confirming the belief of, “I am a successful businesswoman.” It’s confirming the belief of, “I am consistent. I show up for mu community.” It’s confirming the belief of, “I am a great CEO.” I like what that says.

Now, sometimes when I do this exercise on myself, I don’t like what it says. For example, if I’m in the middle of working and I decide that it’s a great time to go scrolling through Instagram, I don’t like what that says about me.

It says I’m not disciplined. It says that I procrastinate. It says that I don’t complete things. Not really good beliefs about myself. And the reason why this is so important is because your beliefs, what you think about yourself is shaping your self-image, how you see yourself.

So, what you think about yourself shapes how you see yourself. And your self-image is creating your entire life. You will always behave in harmony with how you see yourself. I have a friend who is a life coach, and yet, she doesn’t see herself as a life coach yet. She’s just getting started.

And so, I was talking to her recently and she was telling me how she’s really struggling in transitioning from being in corporate to owning that she is a life coach, believing that about herself.

And so, when I asked her what she’s doing in her day-to-day life around her business and being a life coach, how she’s using her time is not creating belief that she is a life coach.

She is spending a lot of time researching. Come on, we’ve all done that, right? She’s spending a lot of time doing busywork, like trying to figure out her niche, trying to figure out what she’s going to call her website.

And I told her, I’m like, “I want you to think about the version of you who has fully owned and truly and deeply believes that she is a life coach. What is she doing? She’s not sitting around researching, unless there’s a purpose, unless she’s producing content and she needs to find some research to support her thesis.” But that’s not the research that most people are doing.

They’re doing it to take what I call faux action. That’s action that doesn’t really lead to a result. But it makes you feel good in the moment. It makes you feel like you’re doing something. It’s just like when I used to read diet books. I would get a high. I was like, “Oh, this is fun. This is the next secret. This is going to be how I finally do it.”

But doing the diet, I didn’t do, or I would do it for a day or two and then I would, what we all say, fall off the wagon. Which, by the way, there is no wagon, just so you know.

However, when she really started to look at how she was using her time and she saw, “Wow, there’s an incongruence between me now and the version of me who believes that she’s a life coach and what she’s doing,” she started to realize how she could begin to use her calendar to produce belief that she is a life coach.

She started scheduling things that her life coach self would be doing, like making offers, writing content, doing Facebook Lives, doing what she needs to do to get new leads. Or she would be telling people that she’s a life coach, which she isn’t currently doing. Because she doesn’t believe she’s a life coach, she doesn’t tell people she’s a life coach, and therefore she never collects evidence that she’s a life coach.

And that’s really what this concept boils down to, using your calendar to change your belief. It’s using your calendar to collect evidence for what you want to believe about yourself. So, let’s say that you want to see yourself as an organized person.

Maybe you are seeing the effects of being disorganized and you don’t like the result and you’re like, “You know what? I want to be an organized person.” Well, first of all, you may not even have a calendar, which that is where I would start with you.

I’d be like, “Listen, let’s get your life organized on the calendar so you can see how you’re using your time and is it effective, is it producing the result that you want?” Then, the process would be putting time blocks with your desired result on your calendar. And you would want to create results on your calendar that would prove to yourself that you are an organized woman.

So, if you have been in total disorganization and your house, your computer files, all of that is in disarray, you would start by having a time block of, “You know what? I’m going to clean up my Google Drive during this time.” Or “I’m going to clean out my closet during another time.” These activities and the results, or better yet the evidence that they would provide to you would be feeling your new self-image of being an organized woman.

If you want to be an amazing spouse or partner, do you have time on your schedule devoted to that? If you want to see yourself as a wealthy woman, is how you’re using your time confirming that belief about yourself? Is it producing wealthy results? And is it producing an energy of, like, “Listen, this is where I’m heading. This is what I’m creating. I’m creating more wealth in my life.”

That kind of woman will have very specific things on her calendar depending on her unique circumstance. For example, every single Monday, I have a money date. It is on my calendar. It is a time when I look at my finances and I make decisions. I meet with my bookkeeper on that day. We have a channel in Slack called Money Love. It’s all money stuff.

And doing that, having it on my calendar and being that intentional confirms the belief of, “I am a wealthy woman.” And that energy of feeling wealth drives me to put other things on my calendar to produce more wealth.

Maybe you want to see yourself as fit and healthy. Well, take a look at your calendar. Does it represent a fit and healthy woman? Do you have time on there to go grocery shopping, for your workouts, for whatever your routine is, is it scheduled? And more importantly, are you showing up for that schedule? That’s a whole different podcast.

Because the moment we put things on our calendar, then we need to have the discipline to show up for what we have decided ahead of time we were going to do two, three, four days ago, maybe weeks ago, maybe months ago. And that requires that you feel the discomfort of change.

Changing your identity, changing your beliefs about you is uncomfortable because the brain likes to stay in the familiar. So, once something’s on your calendar and you start showing up for it, just expect it to be uncomfortable and know nothing has gone wrong. You are on the right track. Just keep walking through that discomfort and show up for yourself.

I think no matter what we decide we want to think about ourselves, no matter what our self-image is that we are creating, the one thing that we all have in common is that she is a person that shows up for herself.

I want you all just to start with noticing the incongruence of who you want to be and what you’re doing today. Don’t judge, but be fascinated with what you discover. Because with awareness, my friends, things can begin to change just by being aware of, “Wow, if I continue to do this, I’m going to just keep reconfirming beliefs about myself that are holding me back.”

So, if I want to have different beliefs about myself, I need to go out there and start collecting evidence for it. And you can use your calendar to do that.

For example, I believe in the concept of leisurely hustling, and I’ve done previous podcast episodes on the topic, so if you want to go check those out, please do. But when I thought about that concept, what it really means is you creating a life full of ambition and ease.

It's about working smarter, not harder. And so, when I’m creating my calendar, I want to confirm that belief about myself, of, “I am a woman who leisurely hustles. I’m not going to burn myself out. I’m not going to work crazy hours. I’m not going to have no time for family and friends. It’s just a nonnegotiable.”

And what happens is it requires your brain to work at a higher level. And so, I decided, I’m only going to work a maximum of four days a week. Most weeks, it’s three days. But for example, right now, I’m doing this event. I have more things than usual to do, and so I have an extra day to get those things done.

So, when I’m creating my calendar, I want it to reflect back to me that I am a woman who leisurely hustles. So, what that looks like on my calendar is I have time blocks and I have learned how to shrink them, which demands that I work at a higher level.

So, for example, I used to give myself two hours to do a podcast. Now I give myself one hour to get in here, get it recorded, and be done. And because I’m working at such a higher level productivity-wise, I’m able to achieve more in a smaller amount of time. And that leaves time on my calendar for leisure.

Now, when I’m scheduling my calendar, I usually schedule the leisure first. Because I know my brain, and my brain is going to tell me, “You need to work more. You need to work harder.” And if I put the leisure on my calendar first, then I have to work around it and be like, “Okay, here’s the time I’m going to go to lunch with my friends. Here’s the night I’m going to host a dinner party. Here’s the time I’m going to be on my day off. This is my journal time. This is my leisure time.”

And then, with the time that’s remaining, I get to work. I’m like, “okay, what needs to happen this week?” Head down, make it happen. I teach this process in the Dream Atelier for those of you who are within the School of Self-Image. It is a powerful process that teaches you how to turn your dreams into reality 30 days at a time. That’s the process I use.

But what I’m really doing, subconsciously, is I’m changing my self-image. I’m reconfirming, with my calendar, how I want to see myself. For all of us who are wanting to live an extraordinary life and are doing this work of changing our self-image in order to create that for ourselves, what we all need to have on our calendar is time to believe, to practice believing.

Yes, the things on our calendar can provide evidence for our new beliefs, but we need to have time where we sit down just to practice new beliefs. That’s why I journal every single morning. I sit down and I sell myself on myself. I’ve done a podcast on that too. You may want to go check that out. But I sell myself on my ideas. I sell myself on the future that I want. I practice believing new things on purpose.

And so, putting that on your calendar can provide evidence of, “I am a woman who believes in herself.” How do I know this? Because every day, I have time carved out to sit down and practice it. So, what do you want to believe about yourself? And how can you start aligning your calendar to provide evidence for that belief?

Have a great week, everyone, and I will see you in next week’s episode. Cheers.

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"If you accept a limiting belief, then it will become a truth for you." ―Louise Hay

Each of us has unique programming in our brains called core beliefs. Without them, the world would likely feel unsafe or foreign.

Beliefs give us a sense of security and belonging.

Some ideas are so deeply ingrained that we may not even have conscious thoughts about them. Nevertheless, we believe, and our brain continues to look for evidence that those beliefs are true.

Core beliefs arise from past experiences as adults and as children. However, those beliefs that impacted us as children are typically harder to recognize as they are so fundamentally established. The things our parents or primary caregivers said and did when we were little girls had a more significant impact than most of us realize. What we learned in church, synagogue, or even in the schoolyard formed values and beliefs that shaped who we are today.

Often those core beliefs are beneficial. However, sometimes, they are limiting beliefs; those that hold us back from personal growth. Those that hold us back from creating the life we want.

In the School of Self-Image, I often say that you can only create as far as your limits – to create beyond those limits, you need to banish your limiting beliefs. You have to push past the edges so that you can reach your goals.

Our self-image, along with any limiting beliefs locked within, are usually directly correlated to those experiences and messages we absorbed growing up.

What is a Limiting Belief? Limiting beliefs are untruths that you've been telling yourself – or that others have told you verbally or demonstratively – about you.

It's any belief that says you are unworthy, not good enough, or incapable.

These beliefs usually enter our brains with starters that sound like, "I shouldn't" or "I can't because" or I'm not…"

Some examples of limiting beliefs are:

I didn't go to college, so I'll never be successful
I won't ever find love because I'm too fat/ too skinny / too tall / too short
I'm not beautiful because I don't have (fill in the blank here with any idea of beauty portrayed and celebrated by media and society today)
I can't count on anyone - I have to do it all myself
I can't sing
I don't express myself well
I look terrible in photos
There is never enough time in a day
I'll never get out of debt
I'm not a creative person
Marriage always ends in divorce - why bother?
I’m not smart enough

Let's unpack a few.

We might think, "I'll never be successful because I didn't go to college." After all, when we were children, our parents told us repeatedly that this was the case – or, perhaps, we saw them struggling because of their lack of education.

Perhaps being inundated with images of women with long, straight hair on magazine covers makes you feel inadequate because your hair is naturally curly. Or, you may think you're "ugly" because you have freckles, thinner lips than Angelina Jolie, or your skin is too fair.

Maybe you think you're not creative because you can't paint like Linda Le Kinff - but let me ask you –

Do you get creative in the kitchen?
Did you decorate your home?
Has anyone ever complimented you on your hair or outfit?
What about that time you wrote a note to a friend that moved her to tears because you so beautifully expressed your sentiments?

All of those things are evidence that you are, indeed, a creative person.

Paying attention to these kinds of thoughts or feelings and recognizing when they are proven to be untrue can go a long way toward getting free of limiting beliefs.

How Limiting Beliefs Hold You Back From Creating the Life You Want I once heard a great analogy about limiting beliefs and growth.

Imagine that you are standing next to a vast, solid tree. We'll call it the Tree of Beliefs.

The Tree of Beliefs represents thoughts, feelings, and values you've accumulated throughout your life. Some of them are great, but others can be pretty limiting – even if they were well-intentioned when imparted by your parents or society – or by you as a form of self-preservation.

The reality about these beliefs is that you need them to feel loved, safe and like you belong. Our brains tell us if any one of these feels like they're at risk of being lost, then we need to do something about it by stopping the threat.

When you have a goal to change or grow in a particular area, you'll usually start to walk away from the Tree of Beliefs because your goal is typically some distance away.

Now, imagine you are held to the Tree of Life by a giant rubber band.

As you walk further and further away from the tree toward your goal, trying to create the result that you want, that rubber band stretches tighter and tighter.

Let's look at weight loss to demonstrate the dynamics of this phenomenon.

Maybe you're walking toward a 30-pound weight loss goal.

As you move toward what you want, you get some push-back from your partner – they want you to hang out with them to watch a movie on Netflix, rather than go to the gym. Perhaps they make some comment about "skinny girls" not being attractive.

Maybe your mom once remarked, "Just wait till you have kids …" as if being a mother (something that fulfills you) naturally equates to weight gain, and, obviously, you can't have one without the other.

Or, perhaps it goes much deeper than that. Maybe your weight served you for a long time as a way for you to hide and feel safe.

As part of your brain starts to feel that your love, safety, and connections are at risk, another part of your brain will tell you to slam on the breaks to keep those needs intact.

It then becomes easy to allow the rubber band to snap us back to where we were.

Have you ever thought to yourself, “It feels like something is holding me back?”

It feels like that because your beliefs are quite literally holding you back.

To grow and create a life that you love, you will have to break up with the parts of yourself – those core limiting beliefs – that are keeping you stuck in old habits and behaviors that continue to offer up evidence that those beliefs are true.

How to Get Free of Limiting Beliefs For most of us, it's natural to define ourselves by our past.

In the interest of freeing yourself from limiting beliefs, get out your journal and make a list of all those that you've picked up along the way—any thoughts about yourself that may be holding you back from living a life that you love.

Dig deep and think about what you learned as a child. What messages were imparted to you either verbally or demonstratively?

Consider any traumas you may have experienced that may be causing you to hold tight to limiting beliefs that may have served you for a long time, but now are only harming you. Talk to a therapist if you need to.

By doing so, you’ll have a clearer picture of what is happening in your brain and you’ll be able to recognize and change your thoughts, feelings and, therefore, your behaviors.

You are not broken. You don't need to fix yourself.

It is possible though that you need to transform your self-image. That will only be possible if you let go of your limiting beliefs.

When you do this work, you’ll be able to create beyond those limits in order to have the life that you want.

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Do you want an easy life or a hard life? If you picked one or the other, I want to offer you this. An extraordinary life is a mixture of both. It’s about balancing the hard with the easy, the leisure with the hustle. And in this episode, I’m showing you how to find the balance between the two.

In order to live a fulfilling life, we must honor the part of us that’s ambitious as well as the part of us that desires leisure. Being hardworking and hustling is great, but we all need time to relax and unwind. If we only take either the easy or hard route in this moment, there is a payment we’ll have to make further down the road.

In this episode, find out why an extraordinary life is a mixture of hard and easy, and how to find the balance between the two. I share the problem with only choosing the easy or hard route in your life, and how to use this concept to live a life you truly love.

What You Will Discover: * Why life is about balancing the easy and the hard, and how to do this. * How to choose the hard things that will move your life forward. * Why we make the hard things in life even harder when we resist them. * The price you will pay down the road if you only ever choose the easy route. * Why we are not supposed to do hard things 24/7. * How to figure out if you are balanced right now.

Featured on the Show: * Download the Self-Image Manifesto and be the first to hear about amazing developments in our community! * Learn more about The School of Self-Image and join today! * 268: My Awesome Day Formula * Love the show? Leave a review of the show in Apple Podcasts (click the link to find out how). * Follow me on Instagram! * Find me on Facebook!

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Episode Transcript:

Do you want an easy life or a hard life? If you picked one or the other, I want to offer you this; an extraordinary life is a mixture of both, hard and easy. And in this episode, I want to talk about you finding the balance between the two. So, let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess Master Life Coach, Tonya Lee.

What is happening, my friends? How are you doing? How are you feeling? What is going on in your world? I hope you're having an awesome day. If not, make sure you go back and listen to last week's episode. I share some of my favorite tips on creating an awesome day. I also want to let you know that the doors to the School of Self Image are open, but only for a short time. I think we're going to be closing down in like a few days from when this episode comes out.

So, if you listen to this podcast and it resonates with you and working on your self-image is something that you want to commit to this year, come join us! Go to SchoolofSelfImage.com/join. What I can tell you is that if you want to expand your life, you must expand your self-image how you see yourself. You've probably heard me say this on the podcast before if you've been listening for a while, but in case you're new, you can only create to the edge of your self-image, and this is why so many people struggle to create results in their lives, right?

They're taking a lot of action. They're trying really hard, but they keep going back to their old ways, and then they wonder what's wrong with me? Well, what I can tell you is nothing is wrong with you. You are not broken, but your self-image might be, and that's the work that we do within the membership. We do it by focusing on three areas which are your mindset, because mindset is everything. But there are also things that influence our mindset.

Such as our surroundings, our style, how we express ourselves, how we show up in the outward world, and those are the three components that we focus on to transform your self-image. So, again, the doors open for a limited time. I would love to support you on this journey of expanding your self-image. So, again, you can go to SchoolofSelfImage.com/join and come with us.

So, this morning I was actually getting ready for the Live Like an Editor workshop that I've been running. And I had gone to the gym early this morning and then came home and took a shower, and I was drying my hair. As I was drying my hair, I was thinking about this concept. So, before I tell you what the concept is, I want to share with you about an article that I wrote years ago that resonated with so many people. It went viral.

It was called leisurely hustling. The concept is that in order to live a fulfilling life, we must honor the part of us that's ambitious as well as the part of us that desires leisure time to relax and unwind. So, this morning as I was drying my hair, I was thinking about this concept within a different way. I really have come to the conclusion that an extraordinary life is a mixture of hard and easy, like finding the balance between those two.

This concept, I started talking about it with my man, and he said something, and it just led into a deeper conversation around this concept because I was talking to him about it. He was like, listen, everything in life is hard. And I was like, what? Then, I realized what he was talking about. You can choose hard now or hard later. If we only take the easy route in this moment, there is a payment that we're going to have to make down the road. It's just like using a credit card, right? You can, in this moment, choose to buy something, but you're going to be expected to pay for it down the road.

So, it really got me thinking about this idea of choosing your hard, and also, leaving space in your life for the easy. Because if we're only ever doing hard things, imagine living in the gym and working out 24 hours a day. Our bodies couldn't take it. Equally, I don't think we're meant to work all of the time. I don't think we're supposed to do hard things 24/7. There's a disharmony and balance in that that is not sustainable, but equally, a lot of people are choosing easy in this moment in an excessive amount that's leading to hard later on.

When I think about getting up in the morning and going to the gym, it's not easy for me. In fact, most mornings, I have a lot of resistance. My brain is telling me things like this bed is so much more comfortable; you can work out later. Basically, it tells me to take the easy road in that moment, and if I listen to that part of me, and I took that easy route day after day, think about the result of that, a year from now, 5 years from now, 10 years from now. It's going to be hard to not be in shape. It's going to be hard to not be able to physically do the things I want to do if I neglect my body right now.

I remember when I started shooting video, I was so scared to be in front of the camera. It was hard, and my brain was telling me to take the easy road. You don't have to do this. You're going to fail. You're going to look like an idiot, and I could have chosen easy in that moment, but I didn't. Because you know what else is hard, losing out on finding clients and sharing what I knew could change their life. What's hard is not showing up for your dreams long-term. That's hard. Even in relationships in the moment of a heated debate or fight, whatever you want to call it, in that moment, the easiest thing you can do is lose your temper and try to get rid of the emotion that you're feeling inside of you by lashing out and expressing yourself in a way that doesn't serve the relationship.

What's harder in those moments is to take a deep breath, center yourself, ground yourself, and try to communicate effectively. In that moment, it's harder to do that but think about what's going to be harder down the road. If you constantly choose easy in that moment and you react to those kinds of situations and conversations. Even doing the work around your self-image, like, in the moment, the easiest thing to do is to not show up for the practice. Long term, it's harder to stay stuck in a self-image that does not serve you.

So, as I was talking about this with my man, I was like, let's unpack this, let's go even deeper into this. Because the first question that came to my mind is, why is life hard? Now, some will argue that life is hard, is a thought, and I 100% agree. It is a thought, and when you think it, it doesn't feel so great. And so, I don't walk around saying life is hard, but I also want to address the realities of life that things happen in the world that we experience as hard because of our thoughts about them, and rightfully so.

If I see someone being hurt, if I see someone struggle, I don't want to be happy about that. I believe that life is hard because we're meant to experience the contrast. We're meant to experience obstacles because those are what grows us. Without hard, we wouldn't understand easy, and vice versa. Without easy, we wouldn't understand hard. So, I believe we need both. I was like, the reason why life is hard, this is the conclusion I came to, is because we resist life. We resist change. We resist discomfort, and that is ultimately what makes life hard.

So, when I talk about choosing your hard, I first want to address this, that things happen in the world that's outside of our control. Unfortunate things happen to people to the humans. I think about my mother. When she was three years old, she was diagnosed with polio, and it's been a hard that she's carried with her throughout her life. But she's decided how she's going to think about it that's actually made her life easier. She didn't resist it. She didn't fight it. She's like, okay, these are the cards I've been dealt.

How am I going to use this for me? And my mother, in her late 70s, has gone on to live an incredible life. I'm so proud of how she was handed this hard thing, and she used it for her. But when I talk about choosing your hard, what I'm really talking about is choosing your discomfort. It's going to be uncomfortable no matter what. Staying the same, not showing up for your goals, knowing you're not living your life to the fullest, it's not easy, even though in the moment, it is the past of least resistance.

In the moment, it's easy to overeat. It's easy to procrastinate. It's easy to not show up for your workouts. It's easy to not clean up your house in the moment. It's so much more fun in the moment to go and watch a little bit of Netflix and eat some popcorn, and lounge around. But what is the price that you are paying for that? You must recognize that you are choosing hard later on versus choosing the discomfort that's going to grow you, that's going to move you forward, that will make your life easier later on.

So, you get to choose your flavor of hard. You can choose a flavor that will make your life better, that will make you better. It's going to make you stronger. It's going to grow you. It's going to increase your confidence, or you can choose a hard, that's going to ultimately make your life even harder. So, here's the conclusion that I landed on for myself, and I want to offer it to you. I personally don't want life to be hard all of the time. I just don't.

I don't know of anyone that does. Life is already hard enough with the resistance that we have around change and just things that happen, unfortunate things. People get sick, people have disabilities, people have found themselves in unfortunate circumstances that are really difficult to get out of, and I want to acknowledge that. And for that reason, I'm always striving for how I can make my life easier how you can make your life easier.

But what I know doesn't work is trying to make it easy all of the time. So, I've come to the conclusion that we need to balance our lives with hard and easy. Choose to do the hard things that will move your life forward. That is going to depend on your circumstance, where you are in your life right now, and what your dreams and goals are. The hard part may be that you are going to go apply for ten jobs this week. The hard part may be that you are going to go exercise 5 days this week.

The hard part might be is that you're going to finally record the podcast or write a chapter of your book. It really just depends. And then, you also need to make sure that you are balancing that with some easy time to rest, time to rejuvenate, time to enjoy your life, time to have fun. That energy is what you need in order to fuel your emotional state to go and do the hard things. It's just like eating, right? We need to consume food to give us the energy to do the things that we want to do in life.

If we consume too much food, we end up with less energy. We don't consume enough food, we end up with less energy, and that's the balance I'm talking about. We need to find our balance of easy and hard. We need to have enough of the easy where we can refuel and rejuvenate than to go do the hard things in our lives. I also want to add you can tell I'm just sharing my thoughts with you right now, but we make the hard things even harder when we resist them.

When we run from the discomfort of them, and we procrastinate like, that just makes it even harder. Part of making the hard easier and having more easy in your life is not resisting the hard. Knowing that when you show up to do hard things, it's going to be uncomfortable. Don't fight the discomfort. Accept that as part of the journey. That's going to be what grows you, and at the end of the day, that discomfort's being caused by thoughts in your brain. That's it.

The brain wants it to be easy all of the time. However, when you listen to that part of your brain, you are going to end up paying a big price later on down the road. The other thing I wanted to offer you for any of you who find yourself choosing easy a lot and knowing that choice is not serving you, something that's really helped me is making it hard to choose easy. The way I do that, and it really helps me, is that when I'm tempted to choose easy when I know, I need to be doing the hard things. Like, recording this podcast, it would be so much easier for me to go watch something on Netflix.

It would be so much easier for me to go do something that doesn't require much of me. But I like to think about my future, and if I keep choosing easy, what is my future going to look like? What does that choice cost me down the road? I do this all of the time to sike myself up to go to the gym. I think about if I don't do this, what's it going to cost me down the road? And I also like to think about if I do, do it, how is it going to make my life so much better down the road?

And in doing those two things inspires me to show up for the hard things. And then, ironically, the more you do that, the easier your life gets down the road. Choosing hard now is like putting money in your piggy bank. Over time all of those pennies, all of those coins are going to add up into a big result. Equally, choosing easy is like taking money out of the piggy bank in the moment, and over time you're going to run out of money.

For me, I think about running out of energy, running out of health, running out of confidence in myself when I am constantly choosing easy. So, again for me, I have found that my most fulfilling days are the days where I balance out the hard and easy. When I get into my office, I get to work. I produce things. I go to the gym. I get my workout in. Then, I also carve out time to watch Netflix, and to enjoy good food, and to have good conversations with friends.

So, I don't want you to think that I'm encouraging you to always choose hard. What kind of life would that be? But I do want you to choose your flavor of hard on purpose and think about choosing doing the hard things that are going to add value to your life later on down the road and to figure out are you in balanced right now? Maybe you're someone that's choosing hard all of the time, and you're exhausted. Your body, mind, and your spirit needs a break. It needs to rest.

On the flip side, maybe you find yourself choosing easy most of the time, and therefore you're not creating the results that you want to create. It's all about balancing the leisure with the hustle, the hard with the easy. And what does this have to do with self-image? Well, self-image is you expanding how you see yourself. So, I always like to think of my future self and what her life is like. What I can tell you, is a lot of you are envisioning her life as so easy. I don't think that's the case. There's always going to be a little bit of hard and a little bit of easy.

So, when I think about my future self, I'm not envisioning this perfect woman who has no obstacles, no struggles, no hard to her life. She's still choosing hard. Why? Because she's still growing, and she knows that life is a balance. It's all about the contrast, but the difference is how she handles it, how she shows up in it. So, in order to become her, you have to practice being her now.

So, what are the hard things that you can do in your life today that will cause you to be more in alignment with her? Also, what are the easy things that you can choose on purpose intentionally that will add value to your life? It will make your days more luxurious and enjoyable, and that will give you the fuel and the energy to go on and do the hard things tomorrow. It's all about balancing the hard with the easy. Have a beautiful week, my friends, and I can't wait to see you in the next episode.

Hey, have you grabbed your free copy of the School of Self Image Manifesto? If not, what in the world? Head over to schoolofselfimage.com/manifesto, and get a copy that teaches you how to think and show up in the areas of mindset, style, and surroundings, so that you can transform your self-image.

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"The meaning of life is the meaning you give to your life." -Paulo Coelho

I often hear from women who lament about their lack of purpose in life.

Women say things like things like:

"I just don't feel like I have any purpose in my life."
"I feel like my only purpose is to be a mom - I want something more!"
"My husband thinks my only purpose is to clean up after him- when did I disappear?
"My purpose? What is that? I'm just trying to make it from day to day."

I get it.

There was a time in my life when I felt like my only purpose was to be a good wife, mother, and critical care nurse. My aim was to make ends meet and just get by.

And I was doing "OK" with that, but I wasn't feeling very excited about life.

Essentially I was getting through it, day after day, and not feeling much about anything.

The best I could do was the next indicated step – I certainly wasn't thinking about bigger, better things or a higher purpose.

To be honest, I just figured it was what it was and I couldn’t really expect anything else.

I remember someone actually once asked me what my life's purpose was. When I replied that I wasn't really sure, she said, "Oh, Honey - You need to find your life's purpose." And I felt so frustrated by that - and maybe just a little bit angry too.

I mean, find my life's purpose? I could barely find my keys in the morning!

Then one day, someone asked me a better question – a more specific question.

A doctor on the night shift at the hospital asked me one night, "Tonya, who is it that you want to be in this world?"

Some of you may have heard this story, but I'll share it here anyway for those of you who haven't.

I said that I wanted to be a good wife, mom, and nurse. And he said, "I'm not talking about the roles you play in life. Who do you want to be as a woman?"

The question stuck with me, nagging at my brain until I finally unwound it and came up with some answers.

I wanted to be cultured, I wanted to be a woman who believed in herself. I wanted to be knowledgeable and worldly. I wanted to be more than just a wife, mom, and critical care nurse.

Not long after that, I attended sommelier school. I finally figured out that rosé was pronounced “rose-ay” , not “rose” like the flower.

Then, I went back to school and got my degree in liberal arts - I knew I wanted to start writing. My journey progressed even further as I later worked with a life coach and realized how much I loved the world of personal development.

I remember thinking - every woman should have access to this!

In short - over those next few years, through curiosity about myself and the world around me, I found my purpose in life.

Showing Up With Purpose Now Curiosity is one of the critical ingredients to engineering your life's purpose – but so is showing up with purpose where you are today.

Unfortunately, so many of us lose sight of that- or we just don't know that showing up where you are today is what will move the needle forward.

You can't wait around until some purpose-filled future finally shows up one day. You have to start acting as if now and living with purpose today.

So how do you do that?

Do the things that fire you up and make you feel excited about life.
Do the things that propel your dreams forward.
Do the things that you want to do, not just the things that you feel you have to do.
Do the things that feel good.

Maybe it's that you think you're not sure what you really want. But, I'm guessing that it's more about not believing you can have it - about thinking that it's just too far out of your reach.

So often we ignore our desires and dreams because we feel that they are impossible or that we just aren't worthy of them.

We settle for the status quo- we settle for life happening to us rather than for us.

The power of purpose is the driving force behind creating value in the world and in our own lives.

It's graceful, practical, and always timely.

Purpose Can Come From Many Places The feeling that your life has meaning can come from things ranging from personal to professional.

Here are a few things that create purpose for many women in their lives. Perhaps these prompts will get your creative juices flowing or help you discover a purpose that lights you up:

Doing work that you find fulfilling
Being of service to others, giving back, volunteering, or just being present and listening
Having and raising a family
Having and caring for pets
Expression through art
Teaching others
Spirituality or faith
Appreciating the sweet things in life: good food, a baby animal, a spectacular sunset, the smell of fresh grass or clean laundry – and, helping others to appreciate these things too
The feeling of accomplishment that accompanies a hard day's work
Setting an example for someone young and impressionable
Mentoring others
Caring for the elderly
Caring for those less fortunate
Caring for the littles who are our future
Sharing your own experience, strength, wisdom, and hope in the interest of being of service to others

While it doesn't much matter what gives your life purpose and meaning, it does matter that you figure out what does and pursue that.

The Power of Purpose Has Far Reaching Effects A growing body of research shows that feeling like your life has meaning helps you be physically, mentally, and spiritually healthier and even boost longevity.

Another study dives in even deeper, showing that the feeling that one is living a worthwhile life seems to be positively linked to almost every aspect of our lives – not just health. The new study followed older adults over time and found that the more worthwhile they saw life, the more positive transformations they experienced over the coming years.

"These associations seem quite pervasive, right across a whole spectrum of our experience," says lead author Andrew Steptoe, a psychologist and epidemiologist at University College London. "It's not only related to health but to social functions, psychological and emotional experiences, economic prosperity, things like sleeping well and time spent doing different kinds of activities."

Discovering Your Why One thing a woman can do to live a more meaningful life is to discover and explore her "why?"

What's the "why" behind getting up in the morning? Perhaps you can envision possible "purpose moments" that may come up throughout the day ahead.

But there are the more significant "whys" to look at too. Your "why" behind your marriage, or showing up, or building a business, or your spiritual practices ...

Purpose Drives Meaning When you have purpose and meaning in life, you're motivated to strive to make things happen.

Richard Leider, the bestselling author of Repacking Your Bags and The Power of Purpose, is the chief content curator for AARP's Life Reimagined Institute, suggests taking the "napkin test." Leider says, "I call it the "Got-A-Minute School of Coaching. Just grab a napkin and jot this formula for purpose: G + P + V = C. Are you using your most enjoyed gifts (G) on things that you feel passionate about (P) in an environment that fits your values (V)? If not, it's time to go back to square one and figure this out."

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If you think about it, a well-lived life is nothing more than a collection of well-lived days. However, over the past couple of years, there’s been a lot of stress, anxiety, and worry, and that’s doesn’t set you up for an awesome day. So, I want to leave all of that behind us and make 2022 the year that we turn it around.

Now, we are human beings, so we’re going to have bad days. There are going to be things that happen that we don’t want to be happy or excited about. But when you can honor that, all the while making the bad days awesome as well, that’s when everything changes.

Would you like to have more awesome days? If so, tune in this week because I’ve been studying my awesome days to see what makes them awesome, and in this episode, I’m sharing all of my tips with you. Get ready to learn my formula to set yourself up for an awesome day, every day.

Would you like to trade in boring resolutions and do something different, fun, and life-changing to start off your New Year? If so, I would love to invite you to join me for my popular workshop called Live Like an Editor. This is a five-day live experience where you will receive daily classes, daily coaching from me, and daily inspiration so that you can learn how to create your life one edit at a time. Click here to kick off 2022 in style.

What You Will Discover: * Why, as humans, not every single day of our lives is necessarily supposed to be awesome. * How your brain tries to make sure you don’t have an awesome day. * What some people choose to make it mean when they’re in a funk, versus what they should actually believe about it. * How to discover what an awesome day looks like for you personally. * The things that all of my awesome days seem to have in common. * How to turn any day into an awesome one.

Featured on the Show: * Download the Self-Image Manifesto and be the first to hear about amazing developments in our community! * Learn more about The School of Self-Image and join today! * Love the show? Leave a review of the show in Apple Podcasts (click the link to find out how). * Follow me on Instagram! * Find me on Facebook!

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Episode Transcript:

Would you like to have more awesome days? If so, you’re going to love this episode. I’ve been studying my awesome days to see what makes them awesome, and I’m sharing all of my tips with you in this episode, so let’s dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here’s your hostess, master life coach Tonya Leigh.

What is happening, my friends? So much is happening in my world. First of all, I am feeling so much better. If you listened to last week’s episode, you could hear I was under the weather. And I’m so grateful that I am feeling like myself again. And I am also wrapping up the final details of my event that I am holding in Miami in less than a month. And it just keeps getting better and better.

Every time I meet with my team, I’m like, “We should do this. We should do that.” And it’s just turning out to be everything I envisioned all those years ago when I thought about doing a big event. I cannot wait to see you all there who are going to be coming. We’re going to have so much fun.

I’m also super excited that we just opened the doors for enrollment to the School of Self-Image membership. I am so proud of this membership. And more specifically, I am so proud of the members. We have collected hundreds of testimonials of women who are achieving extraordinary results because they are expanding their self-image, which as a result, is expanding what is possible for them.

I had a woman email me just last week and she was so excited because she has been in debt for over 15 years. And because she didn’t have these tools, she did what most of us do without this knowledge and this understanding. She kept looking at her past, at the debt that she had created, and she allowed that to shape her self-image.

And because we will always create how we see ourselves, she just perpetually kept creating debt for herself. And she emailed me last week to say, “I am, for the first time in 15 years, debt free.” And it’s because she changed her self-image to a woman who is debt free, and then she created that result for herself.

Some of our members have struggled with their weight for years. And as soon as they change their self-image, they are able to lose the weight and keep it off. I’ve had members who were able to make six figures after being stuck at, like, $75,000 for, like, three years. I’ve had members who found the love of their lives.

All of these stories are coming in, and it all boils down to them changing their self-image. Because listen, y’all, your self-image is creating your entire life. If you see yourself as broke because that’s been what you’ve experienced in the past, you will continue to create that result for yourself.

If you see yourself as unlovable because of something that maybe happened in the past, you will reject love. If you see yourself as not good enough, you will perpetuate that story. If you see yourself as not successful, you will prove to yourself through your actions that you’re not successful.

So, when you change your self-image, you change your life, which is why this is the most important work you will ever, ever do. And if you want to do this work with me in the most extraordinary group of women, come join us. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/join and you can read all about the membership and what’s included, and I cannot wait to see you in there.

One of the things that I have noticed when I go into our private group is how women are reporting having more awesome days. And if you think about it, a well-lived life is nothing more than a series, a collection of well-lived days.

And as I was preparing for this podcast, I was thinking back over the last two years. And I know that the majority of the world have had days full of stress and anxiety and uncertainty and worry. Most people wouldn’t be describing their average days as awesome. And for us, I want us to make 2022 the year that we have more awesome days than not.

Now, we’re all human. I don’t think that we’re supposed to have awesome days every day. There are things that happen in life that we don’t want to be happy about, we don’t want to be excited about. But a lot of the days that we classify as bad are simply days where we haven’t managed our minds correctly.

So, those bad days have the potential to be awesome, and that’s what I want to share with you in this episode. I am constantly researching myself and studying myself to share what I learn with you all.

Like most of you, my brain doesn’t automatically go to creating awesome days. It’s crazy how our brain wants us to be scared, wants us to stay in the familiar, wants us to keep doing the same things over and over. The brain doesn’t want to work that hard.

So, it requires effort, especially in the beginning, especially if you’ve been in a period of having down days, it takes a little more effort in the beginning to get the momentum going where having awesome days is more common than not.

I can say for me now, it is less common for me to have bad days. And it’s not because my life is perfect. It’s not because everything always turns out the way I want it to. Quite the contrary actually. But it’s because of how I’ve trained my brain to think.

And so, my default now isn’t to go to, “Woe is me. My life is bad. Nothing good ever happens.” I just don’t go there anymore. I’ve trained my brain where my default is to go to something that’s more uplifting and positive and that will help me create a better day.

And even with that practice, I still have bad days. In fact, two days ago – let’s see, today is Wednesday, so Monday – I was in a funk for no reason. I mean, the sun was out. I was feeling better. Things were going well. Like, I was just in a funk.

And I realized that that is part of the process. When I’m in a funk now, I don’t make it mean that my life is bad. I don’t make it mean that anything has gone wrong. I’m just in a funk. I don’t fight it.

But I was able to get right back on track, and I’m going to share with you how. I was able to turn – actually, on Monday, I didn’t turn it into an awesome day. But the next day, I was like, “Okay, let’s go. I had my funky day. Now I want to make Tuesday – yesterday – awesome.”

And like I say, I’ve been paying attention even more intensely recently about what makes my awesome days awesome. And I’ve seen a pattern. I’ve seen a direct correlation with the things that I’m about to share with you and how awesome my days feel. And so, I want to share it with you because, like I said, I want us to have more awesome days in 2022. What do you say? Let’s make a deal that we’re going to practice this together.

So, here are the common things that I’ve noticed on my awesome days. I’m calling this my awesome day formula. The first thing that I’ve noticed on my awesome days is that I start the day out with intention.

So, instead of jumping out of the bed and not really thinking about my future day, I just start living and I don’t manage my brain. And those are the days that aren’t so great. So, what do I mean when I say, “Start the day out with intention?”

First of all, if I wake up with a negative feeling – for me, my most common negative feeling is anxiety. Now, I don’t have it as much now as I used to. I used to be a very anxious person and I’ve worked a lot around my anxiety. But even still, there are some mornings I wake up and I just have anxiety. It’s there.

And so, I like to do the work to clean that up first. I don’t want to carry that with me throughout the day. So, I can do a little bit of brain cleaning, a little mind cleansing, and clean it out. And so, what that looks like for me is stilling still for a moment and asking myself, “Why am I anxious?” And it will always be a thought, or many thoughts, that are creating my anxiety. And so, I like to clean that up.

And then from that place, I’ll ask myself, “How do I want to feel today? What is the emotion that I want to generate today?” And that’s going to vary depending on my day. So, for example, on a workday, I might want to feel productive or excited or confident. It just depends.

On a weekend, I may want to feel relaxed. I may want to feel fun. So, I get really clear, first thing in the morning, about how I want to feel today. The next thing I love to do is ask myself, “What is the results, or the results that I am committed to creating today?”

Now, this is a very different question than “What am I going to work on today.” Because we can spend a lot of time working on stuff and not creating a result from that. So, I like to be very clear. I like to tell my brain, “This is the result that I am going to create today.”

So, what does that look like? Well, today, for example, I had a team meeting, and I knew the result of that meeting was I wanted certain decisions made. I also wanted the result of recording this podcast. I wanted to the result of completing the workbook for my upcoming event, and the result of having a fun and exciting virtual cocktail party with my VIP School of Self-Image members that I’m going to be hosting in a few hours.

So, by doing that, I have told my brain what I want to create today. Now, all I have to do is to show up for my calendar and what I have scheduled and create those results. I know, if I do that, I have a more likely chance of having an awesome day.

Now, some of you may be thinking, “Well, what about on the weekends?” There are days where I don’t want to create a result. I just want to be. And that’s a beautiful thing. I think we need space in our calendars just to be. And those days feel awesome too. Do you know why? Because they’re intentional.

It’s not like I’m procrastinating and checking out of my life by binging on a Netflix episode. It’s because I decided ahead of time, “This is going to be the day that I do whatever I want.” So, that’s the first thing to creating an awesome day. Start your day out with intention. Know how you want to feel and the result that you want to create.

The second ingredient that I’ve noticed to my awesome days are the days when I exercise. In fact, on Monday when I was in a funk, do you know what I didn’t do? I didn’t exercise. So, around 5PM, I said, “You know what? I’m going to test this theory out.” I went down to the gym in my building, and I got in an hour workout. And immediately, I started feeling better.

Studies have proven that exercise releases feel-good hormones. And for me personally, not only do I feel better physically after I’ve exercised. I also feel better emotionally. There’s a sense of pride that I took the time out to take care of myself, that I’m doing something good for my body. And there’s also an energy that happens with exercise.

Think about it. When you’re in a low mood, what does your brain tell you to do? For most people, the brain tells you to do things that perpetuate that low mood. The brain may tell you to go eat when you’re not hungry. The brain may tell you to stay on the couch and watch Netflix. The brain may tell you to stay in bed.

The brain loves to feed the mood that it’s in because it doesn’t have to work to change it. And so, when you find yourself in a funk, just test this out. Go for a walk. Go to the gym. Move. Get to moving. Because here’s my theory around this; when you are physically moving, it’s a symbol that your life is moving. There’s an energy that is pulsing through your body that is welcoming more movement in your life.

So, all of my awesome days, seriously, when I look back over the days where I feel the best when I lay down at night are the days that I’ve exercised. Now, in conjunction with that, I’ve noticed that my awesome days are the days when I nourish myself well. I eat good foods. I eat until I’m elegantly satisfied. And I’m energized by my foods. I don’t feel lethargic because I ate a bunch of sugar, or I ate too much. And so, eating well is also a part of my awesome day formula.

The other component of my awesome day formula is getting dressed up. Now, this is going to look different for all of us. But when I talk about getting dressed up, it’s getting dressed with intention. Again, bad moods love to feed themselves. And one of the ways they love to feed themselves is by telling you to stay in your PJs or throw on the sweats or whatever piece of clothing that you have that makes you feel even worse.

So, the first suggestion that I have is to get rid of any clothing that makes you feel bad. Seriously, get rid of the tattered PJs. Get rid of the big, baggy sweatpants. Get rid of any clothing that you may be tempted to reach for when you’re in a bad mood. Because then, it won’t be available to you, and you’ll be forced to put on something that makes you feel better.

Now, that’s not to say that we shouldn’t have athletic wear in our wardrobe. I have plenty. But I wouldn’t be embarrassed if you caught me in it. So, that is another sign. If your clothes embarrass you, if you’re ashamed of someone knocking on your door and catching you in it, it does not belong in your closet.

But the days when I wake up and get dressed with intention – which for me now is almost every day because I love how it feels. But when I ask myself – so let’s say for example, I want to feel powerful today. Well, what outfit helps me create that feeling?

Or maybe I want to feel relaxed or maybe I want to feel feminine or sexy. It doesn’t matter. But knowing how you want to feel and then dressing accordingly will help you have a more awesome day because you’re feeding the desired emotion that you have.

And not only this, you all, but how you dress is shaping your self-image. Because when you see yourself in a mirror, you’re going to have thoughts about yourself. So, I want you to put something on that, when you look at yourself, you feel proud, you feel like you’re a woman who respects herself, a woman who loves herself. I want you to give yourself that feedback loop. So, getting dressed with intention is part of my awesome day formula.

Another component of my awesome day formula is getting out of the house. I cannot tell you how important this is, especially after the last two years where so many of us were stuck at home, we weren’t going out a lot. I think that’s what led to a lot of our stress and anxiety is that we didn’t have interaction with the world.

I also think this is very challenging for those of us who work from home. Whether you’re running your business from home or you’re a stay-at-home mom, you can find yourself three or four days having not left your house. And you may start to notice that you just start to feel bad and disconnected. Which is why I make an effort to get out of the house every day.

It might be to go to the coffee shop. Maybe it’s going to the gym. I even recently joined a private members club so I could have a place to go and work, just to be around other people. And they also have evening social hours and I make a point to go there once or twice a week.

I also love to plan things on my calendar. So, lunches with friends, dinner with friends, concerts, things that will require that I get out of the house. Because I know that those are the days when I feel most awesome.

Get out. Go for a walk. See the world. See your neighborhood. Participate in life that’s happening outside of your house. This has been a big one for me because, for about three years, I didn’t get out much, and I was starting to go stir crazy. And so, now that I’m in Denver, I’m out all of the time. It’s so much fun. So, get out of the house.

The next one is, take the time each day to indulge in true pleasure. What do I mean by true pleasure? It’s the kind of pleasure that makes your life better. It’s the kind of pleasure that you don’t regret the next day. It’s the kind of pleasure that makes you feel sated and fulfilled and proud. Very different from faux pleasure, which bad moods love faux pleasure; binge eating, watching a lot of TV shows, doing things to escape your life. That’s not the kind of pleasure I’m talking about.

I’m talking about the kind of pleasure that adds to the quality of your life. And that’s going to be different for all of us. And I think it’s important that we have a diversified portfolio of things that bring us pleasure.

For me, I love games. I am a game freak. We just discovered this new game. My friend Brooke and her family introduced us to it, and I cannot get enough of this game. It’s called Unicorns. It’s a card game. And when I first watched them play it, I was so confused. I’m like, “I don’t know if I ever want to learn this game.” But then when I learned it, I’m like, “This is the best game ever.”

And so, playing Unicorns, I love to play cards. I love games. And so, every day, I play some kind of game, every single day. It brings me so much pleasure. I also love good shows on Netflix. I also enjoy things like taking warm bubble baths. I love evening dinners with a nice glass of wine. I love going out with my friends for dinner.

My daughter and I are starting to play tennis again. I like to go skiing up in the mountains on the weekends. So, these are all of the kinds of things that bring me true pleasure. Some require more time commitment than others. And then, some are very simple. Even lighting a candle, having beautiful flowers in your house. I have music playing in my house all of the time. Those things bring me pleasure and they make my life, the quality of my life better. And so, those are a part of my awesome day formula.

The final component of my awesome day formula revolves around how you wrap up your day. Because some of you all are having awesome days, and you don’t even stop to appreciate them. You’re onto the next day. And so, I love ending my day in celebration. I love looking back over my day and looking for what I’m proud of, how I impressed myself, what I enjoyed, what I’m blessed with.

And you can do this no matter how you would classify your day. In fact, this is a beautiful way, if you’re having a bad day, to wrap it up so you can set yourself up for an awesome day tomorrow, so you don’t bring that energy over into the next day.

I believe in us celebrating every single day. And so, try that tonight. After you listen to this episode, before you go to bed, I want you to look back over your day and find something to celebrate. I am a huge believer in when you celebrate life, life celebrates you back. So, each day, before you go to bed, look for something to celebrate.

So, I’m going to recap my awesome day formula. First, start your day out with intention. If you need to clean up any negative feelings, do that first. And then, decide, “How do I want to feel today?” And then, what do you need to think and what do you need to do to create that feeling for yourself? And then, “What is the result that I am committed to creating today?”

So, that’s how you start your day out with intention. Also, make exercise a part of your day. Eat well. Eat in a way that is nourishing and feels good to your body. Dress with intention. Decide how you want to feel for the day and then choose your clothing accordingly. Get out of the house. Indulge in true pleasure, and wrap up your day with celebration.

That is my awesome day formula, my friends. And hey, listen, if you want to commit to having more awesome days this year and you want my support and you want to be a part of an extraordinary group of women, head over to schoolofselfimage.com/join and come join us in the membership.

Here’s my guarantee. If you do this work, you will have more awesome days this year. I hope to see you inside and I cannot wait to see you in next week’s episode.

Hey, before you go, don’t forget to sign up for my upcoming five-day live workshop called Live Like an Editor. You can head over to schoolofselfimage.com/workshop and I cannot wait to see you inside.

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“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once (she) grows up.” - Pablo Picasso.

Remember when you were a little girl, and imaginative creativity was a constant friend? She was always by your side; she was vibrant, fantastical, fun, and daring. When together, time was non-existent, and the world was your oyster. Together you could do anything, be anyone, and create without boundaries.

Maybe you colored and drew, made up stories for whoever would listen, played house, or played dress-up. Perhaps you made animals out of play dough, created epic adventures, got busy with your Easy Bake Oven, or dressed up Barbie and Ken in all sorts of outfits for their varying glamorous experiences.

Sadly, as we grow out of childhood, creative big picture thinking is seemingly coaxed out of us, whether by life circumstances or by those who influenced us. We often received the direct or indirect message that we needed to get serious and focus on the pragmatic.

In his book, Orbiting the Giant Hairball, Gordon MacKenzie talks about going into elementary schools to teach kids how to sculpt. At the beginning of each course, he’d always start out with a question. He’d ask, “Will all the artists in the room please raise your hands?”

What he found was consistent. The first-grade kids were all in, their little hands enthusiastically shooting up in the air. However, with each consecutive grade up, fewer children raised their hands. MacKenzie says, “By the time I reached sixth grade, no more than one or two (raised their hands) and then only ever-so-slightly – guardedly – their eyes glancing from side to side uneasily, betraying a fear of being identified by the group as a ‘closet artist.’”

Every Woman Is Creative – Even if You're Think Not Dreams of writing, painting, drawing, singing, acting, or playing music were often encouraged when we were little girls, sure. But as we got closer to graduating from high school, that encouragement seemed to wane. If not, it came with the caveat that we should “be sure to have a backup .”A degree in something practical. A husband and family. Maybe both…

Then one day, we found ourselves in adulthood making statements like, “I don’t have a drop of creative blood in my body.” or “I’m not an artist - I can barely even draw a stick figure!”

I want you to consider something. Have you ever:

Selected the perfect piece of art, or nicknack for a room in your home
Arranged a bouquet of flowers – or eucalyptus branches
Doodled on the side of your notes during a meeting
Put together a fabulous outfit
Made a fantastic meal and paired it with just the right bottle of wine
Wrote a lovely message for someone’s birthday
Scoured an antique shop – or Anthropologie – and found the perfect table lamp for your living room
Decorated a birthday cake
Put your hair into a chic updo – or did your daughter’s hair with ribbons and barrettes
Refinished an old piece of furniture
Made up a story, a song, or an analogy for a child
Decorated the house – or yourself – for Halloween
Put berries, granola, chocolate chips, or chia seeds in your pancakes

In all of these actions and more, you were being creative. Creativity lies within each one of us — we were born as creative people, whether we’ve cultivated that into adulthood or not.

The right brain hemisphere, where creative thinking takes place, is a no-judgment zone – it’s free and open, and time disappears. But, unfortunately, it’s a space that, as adults, many have forgotten mainly – or become afraid – to enjoy.

For many women, the type of absorbed creative focus available to a little girl armed with a box of craft materials is rare.

Since, as women, we immerse ourselves in much less captivating, big-picture, creative thinking, getting back to that space isn't always easy.

And you can do it.

Reclaiming Your Creativity I’ve been thinking a lot about how wonderful it would be if that creative spark that was always so present in childhood was brought back into every aspect of adult life.

I’ve been diving into the research and learning that reclaiming our creativity is a significant factor in discovering our passion, finding out what makes us feel alive, what lights us up and delights us, and what helps us show up most authentically.

Creative thought helps us develop and perhaps make connections that weren't previously apparent to us. It helps us break open puzzles, and create not just works of art but “arts of work.” Arts of work can be personal or professional-related ideas that solve strategic problems – but also surprise and delight.

Every woman's mind works differently, so it may take some experimenting to figure out the best way for you to relax and be open to your creative energy. For example, maybe journaling is the best way for you to stretch your mental muscles, or perhaps listening to music, meditating, or reading something inspiring gets your creative juices flowing.

Creativity not only connects us to our more profound nature but it moves us into a more intimate union with the world around us.

Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Big Magic, says, “A creative life is an amplified life. It’s a bigger life, a happier life, an expanded life, and a hell of a lot more interesting life. Living in this manner – continually and stubbornly bringing forth the jewels that are hidden within you – is a fine art, in and of itself.”

The best part about being creative is that there are no rules whatsoever. None.

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I’ve been choosing a word of the year for over a decade. And when I look back over the last 10 years, I can definitely see the influence of having a word to guide me, 365 days at a time.

In 2021, I chose the word "audacious." Having that at the forefront of my days, the way I lived, and the choices that I made really grew me. I made some audacious decisions, and I ended up creating an audacious year as a result.

I spent a lot of time in December really thinking about 2022 and what I wanted to experience more of, my goals, and who I needed to become in order to make all of that a reality. I think I’ve come up with the perfect word of the year for 2022, and I’m sharing it with you in this episode.

Tune in this week to uncover the power of having a guiding word on your self-image journey over the next 12 months. I’m sharing my word of the year, and how I want it to show up in every aspect of my life in 2022.

What You Will Discover: * Why there is so much power that comes from having a word of the year. * The work we’re doing inside the School of Self-Image to, not only choose a word of the year, but allow that word to grow you this year. * What I want to create more of in my life for 2022. * The word I decided on as my word of the year, and how I’m using it to guide me for the next 365 days.

Featured on the Show: * Download the Self-Image Manifesto and be the first to hear about amazing developments in our community! * Learn more about The School of Self-Image and join today! * A Self-Image Word of the Year * Love the show? Leave a review of the show in Apple Podcasts (click the link to find out how). * Follow me on Instagram! * Find me on Facebook!

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Episode Transcript:

Each year, I choose a word of the year. This is a work that I intentionally practice embodying for 365 days. And in this episode, I’m going to share with you what my 2022 word of the year is. So, let’s dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here’s your hostess, master life coach Tonya Leigh.

What is happening, my friends? Yes, my voice is different. I’ve been sick. I got COVID over the holidays and I have not left my house in almost 10 days, and I’m going stir crazy. Although, if I were to get COVID, this was the best time for it to happen.

I had already planned to take time off from work. I just thought I would be doing fun things, not staying at home in my PJs, sipping hot tea, and watching a ton of shows on Netflix. But this is what my life has been like for almost two weeks.

I’m definitely starting to feel better. I have a cough that just won’t go away, but the aches are gone and I’m feeling stronger than I was a week ago. So, I’m really grateful for that. I’m grateful for so many things, you all.

I am grateful for my family, my incredible friends. I’m grateful for this community. I’m grateful for my guy. Did you know I got engaged over the holidays? Yeah, I’m as shocked as you are. Didn’t see that coming. But it was such a huge yes in my body and I’m just so grateful to have found an incredible man as my life partner.

So yeah, that happened, and I got COVID. But here we are. It’s the beginning of a new year, and I don’t have a lot of voice to record a long podcast for you. In fact, the podcast that I was going to record, I’m going to save for a later date because I want to go deep into what it was I was going to talk to you about.

But for this podcast, I just wanted to share with you all my word of the year. I have recorded other podcasts about choosing a word of the year. I highly recommend that we all do it. Within the School of Self-Image this month, I’m taking all of the members through an in-depth process for not only choosing your word of the year, but giving them tools on how to apply it so that that word grows you and changes you and helps you reach your goals and to create your vision that you have for yourself.

I’ve been choosing a word of the year for over a decade. And when I look back over the last 10 years, I can definitely see the influence of having a word to guide me year after year. There’s something really powerful about telling your brain what you want to focus on being for an entire year.

For example, last year, I chose the word audacious. And having that at the forefront of my days, to guide my decisions, to guide how I thought, to guide where I lived and the choices that I made really grew me. I made some audacious decisions, and I ended up creating an audacious year as a result.

So, this year, I spent a lot of time in December really thinking about 2022 and what I wanted to experience more of, my goals, and who I needed to become in order to have those experiences and reach those goals. And I kept going back to a few days that I had in Aspen.

So, I was in Aspen in December, beginning of December with my daughter and her boyfriend. They were there for the first part of the trip. And then my guy and his daughter came out for the second half.

But when I was there the first half with my daughter and her boyfriend, they were off doing their own thing, and I had several days of just me, where I woke up and I eased into my day, and then I had periods of intense, focused work. And then I would work out, and then I would go to happy hour.

It was just perfect days. They felt so aligned. And I went to bed every night that week feeling so proud of myself. And I think that is the most glorious feeling to have; especially for those of us who knows what it feels like to be disappointed in ourselves. I spent a large part of my early adulthood being perpetually disappointed in myself.

So, to have that feeling of being proud of yourself is something that I recommend all of us create more of for ourselves. And so, when I was choosing my word of the year, I just kept thinking about those few days and how aligned I felt, how productive I felt, how relaxed I felt, how excited I felt, how healthy I felt.

And I was like, “Okay, I want more of that. I want to feel more of that in 2022.” So, the question became, who do I need to become to create more of that?

Several words came to mind when I was thinking about that question, but there was one in particular that stood out. And I know, if I make this my word of the year, which I am, it’s going to have extraordinary results in my life.

The word is, “Impressive.” I want to be an impressive woman. Now, my focus is not on impressing other people. I spent a large part of my early adulthood doing that and the results were not good because the person I wasn’t impressing was myself. I was making choices that were out of alignment with my values and who I really wanted to be, to gain the approval and admiration of other people. I never suggest that.

But what I am wanting to do is impress myself this year. I want to have those days that feel impressive. When I go to bed at night and I’m like, “Wow, look at what you did, look at what you accomplished.” And not just accomplished in a sense of what I create, but what I accomplished emotionally, mentally.

I don’t want to burn myself out this year. I want to have those days like I had in Aspen where I’m enjoying and I’m working hard. It’s like playing like a dog. Dogs know how to play. They’re playing hard, but they’re having the time of their life doing it. That’s how I want to feel this year.

I want to have time to take care of myself and work out and take care of my health. And I want to produce at a higher level than I’ve ever produced in my entire life. And I know doing that, I will impress myself.

And if other people find that impressive, great. I hope I can inspire other people. But that’s not the point. I want to impress myself. I am the person that has to lay down with me every single night and I have to get up with myself every single morning. I want to focus on that relationship and how I think about and feel about myself.

So, my word of the year for 2022 is, “Impressive.” I want to make decisions that are impressive. I want to show up in impressive ways. I want to surround myself with people who impress upon me what’s possible.

And so, I’m really excited to see how this word grows me, how I changes me, and what results it allows me to create when I focus every single day on being an impressive woman.

Now, I want to hear from you, what is your word of the year? Head over to Instagram, find me, @tonyaleigh. Send me a DM or leave a comment under one of my posts and tell me what your word of the year is. Because I will be over here cheering you on. I’m really excited about what this year holds for each of us, and I can’t wait to see how our words of the year grow and evolve us in 2022. Have a great week, everyone.

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When you simplify your schedule, you amplify your life, and sweet success falls quickly into place.

In the School Of Self-Image, I often talk about the art of the leisurely hustle. An oxymoron, to be sure, it's nonetheless the secret sauce to creating a life that you love.

Leisurely hustling is more about mindset than anything else. It's also about actionable items like delegation and decisions about taking the time you need to take for yourself.

It's about the balancing act imperative to self-care and getting things done.

Creating from a mindset of fear, anxiety, or overwhelm can only lead to frustration and self-sabotage.

Success happens when we create from a place of tranquility, love, and enthusiasm.

Beliefs that will derail your schedule and get in the way of success: * I'm so behind * There isn't enough time * I have to get things done * There will be time to (rest, relax, read, sleep, eat, journal, workout) tomorrow * I can't afford it * When I've finally (done the thing), then I'll (do the something) * I'll never make it

Beliefs that lift you up, bolster your success, and simplify everything: * Friends and family always take precedence over work * I come first * There is nothing more important than my health, peace of mind, and wellbeing * There's plenty of time * I deserve to relax * I'm exactly where I need to be * I have everything I need right now – including money * Feelings rather than goals are what I'm after * It (whatever "it is" can wait * How important is it – really?

Ladies of leisure have these thoughts, beliefs, and feelings in their pockets, and they leisurely float through life on the wings of success. I know it sounds like a pipe dream, but trust me on this one, Ladies. I've learned it the hard way.

As a result of implementing the leisurely hustle, you'll often find these women having ah-ha moments while lounging by the pool, getting their nails done, or enjoying a late afternoon glass of Chablis with their best friend at a local outdoor café.

I'm Crystal Clear on What I Won't Sacrifice to Get More Things Done I'm so grateful for the fantastic team of people who help me keep the School of Self-Image running smoothly – and that doesn't mean that I don't have things to do for you all, my friends, like write this blog, record your weekly podcast, or work on our monthly coaching calls and office hours.

I get it all done by taking care of myself first.

Here are just of few nonnegotiable things that come far before anything else:

Twice monthly massage sessions
Time with friends and family
Bubble Baths
Reading
Civilized, relaxed meals at the dining table
Movie nights
Daily reflection – time to just sit and think
Exercise
Journaling
Meditation
Mornings that are 100% mine

My morning hours are my sanctuary and are off-limits to outside interruptions. Morning time is the time I set aside to gather myself, consider my day, focus, and center. My morning hours are sacred and fiercely guarded.

These are my essential self-care items that take precedence over everything else, and I recommend that every woman define hers too.

Of course, all of our lives are different, and we each have other priorities, responsibilities, and schedules.

Your time is your time. These things work for me. And, every "perfect schedule" is ideally suited to its maker.

Yes, I know there are dozens of books out there that say things like you "should" be up by 5 AM, meditate no fewer than 40 minutes a day, or journal as though your life depends on it. Those things work for some people.

Only you can know what works best for you.

A Few Ideas On How You Can Simplify Your Schedule

Allow me to preface this section by saying that these are the things that work for me. They are ideas for you to run with; and, you should certainly tailor them to your own life circumstances and lifestyle.

Define Your Sweet Spot Over time, I've learned how much I can commit to each day, week, month, and year. I've learned to balance work and social obligations and give myself a little bit of grace by prioritizing time for myself and my family.

Question Every Invite There was a time in my life when I felt guilty about saying no when I was invited to do something or go somewhere. I didn't want to be rude, after all. But, in learning how to put myself first, I've learned how to protect my time and energy, guard my family time, and also take care of my business.

Before saying yes to an invite, be sure to ask yourself: is this event going to fill me up or drain me? Is it essential that I attend? Is this something I want to do, need to do, or feel I should do (pst … it's never a good idea to "should" on yourself!). How important is it, and what would happen if I simply said no?

Learn The Art of Saying No There are three simple rules to the art of saying, "no."

No explanations are needed – not to anyone and not any time. Explanations are optional.
You don't owe a "yes" to anyone – not ever.
Be gracious and kind, yes. And – always be firm.

Make a Pseudo List As some of you may know, I'm not a big fan of lists. I feel bogged down by them, and I also find them restraining. Nevertheless, I do loosely define my goals for the week – After all, if we don't determine what we want, how can we possibly obtain it?

So here it is, Ladies:

Before my week begins - usually early Monday morning or Sunday evening – I sit with my journal and define my priorities for the week. Then, I list three things (you read that right - JUST THREE) that I consider crucial to checking off my list for the week. Then, I subtask less essential items. After that, all else naturally falls into place.

Simplification is Simply Everything Simple, easy, follow the flow … When you learn to say no, balance self-care with personal and professional obligations, and put yourself first, success is an easy path to follow.

I'm curious – do you plan your day, week, or month? If so, how do you go about it?

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