There’s a lot of talk about balance, and a lot of talk about success…what does it mean when you put the two together?
Here is a photo of the Wheel of Life I teach in my course and coaching program.
Balanced success is when you are intentionally developing healthy habits in each of the spokes. SPOILER ALERT! It’s extremely rare for them to all be thriving at any one snapshot moment in time.
For example, I have a speaking engagement coming up that will require me to travel away for a few days. My family spoke will likely get out of whack while I prepare for the trip, go on the trip and return from the trip. It’s highly likely that upon my return, the kids will crave extra attention from me, the laundry will be behind and there will be a sink full of dishes.
While I am away I will be giving all of my attention to my career spoke and then when I return, I will likely need to put some other spokes on pause while I catch up on the lack in my family.
This. Is. Life.
If you feel like the only way to keep your wheel moving is to regularly shift your attention between each of these spokes, then congrats. You are officially human. You aren’t doing anything wrong.
The key to the success is to simply add intention behind it all. Are you being proactive or reactive? Have you developed habits that make thriving in each of these areas easier?
Guys…seriously…this is how much I love you and want to make my message GLARINGLY obvious.
Today I made an Instagram reel, in a bikini, of me dancing. The text said,
“My 3 step process to get your body bikini ready this summer:
Buy a bikini
Put it on your body
Have fun”
Last summer I wrote this blog post about how to manage the weight loss struggles that so many women face. The first step truly is a positive body image.
We cannot hate our bodies into health.
If the core motivation for making “healthier choices” is shame for how you feel about your body, then there is a very small chance you will sustain the weight loss. Eventually, a binge is likely on it’s way. The emotions of guilt and shame have a sneaky way of snowballing on top of each other like an avalanche until it all comes crashing down.
However, we can LOVE our way into healthy choices.
I do not preach or teach giving up alcohol as a lifestyle choice. It’s completely up to you. Personally, about a year ago, I gave up wine permanently. It wasn’t about the sugar intake. It wasn’t about the calories. It wasn’t about a special program I was following. It was simply because over and over again I was waking up the next day with a fog and a slow start. Keeping up with two small kids at 6am is tiring enough. Wine was making it harder.
I simply decided one day “I don’t enjoy this. The taste of wine does not outweigh the struggle the next day.” I made the choice out of love for myself.
I CHOOSE to eat vegetables and less processed foods because I enjoy the feeling of more energy. I choose carefully when to take in lots of carbs because I weigh the love of the food against the energy crash that comes. Sometimes it’s worth it. Sometimes it’s not.
The love of my body is what motivates me to drink over 100oz of water a day and get a full night’s rest. The love of my children and wanting to be around when they are old is what motivates me to get my heart rate up each day.
I danced on the internet today in a bikini on Instagram and TikTok because I desperately want to inspire you to love your body too. Exactly as she is right now. Because your love for her is what will motivate you to make sustainable, long lasting, good choices.
Now, go buy that bikini and tell yourself how beautiful you look in it.
Happy Summer,
Sophia
P.S. My 10-week course “You Deserve to Thrive” is launching May 31. The cart will open on May 18 for registrations. If you want first dibs on a pre-registration discount then sign up here. As soon as I wrap up the details, you will get the first notification.
P.P.S. If you do not already follow me on Instagram, my handle is @thesophiahyde. I have mapped out a plan for that account and will be moving most of my free content over there.
Many of us are plagued with worrying. Even if we don’t recognize it as a worry, we find our thoughts often drift to the same concerns time and time again when we are driving down the road or sitting alone in the quiet.
Oftentimes, without the tools to manage those thoughts, people will manage by overriding them.
“I need to take my mind off of things,” is a common phrase. This may manifest as watching TV, playing video games, scrolling social media, drinking or other common habits to drown out the noise.
What if I told you that you have the ability to release them whenever you want?
It’s true.
Despite how little control you may feel over the things you wish could change, you do not need to hold onto them. You can release them from your thoughts, and therefore, release them from your body.
All of the emotions we experience are felt by our bodies. Stress causing a heart attack is one of the most often we witness. But happiness or anxiousness can make our heart race or our palms sweat. Sadness makes us cry, right? Our bodies and minds are highly interconnected, so it’s important to understand that those worries and concerns are manifesting in your body somewhere as well.
This week I am going to offer a guided meditation on how to release your worries. I used this technique with a client this week and realized it’s probably a healthy tool for many of us.
If you are interested in learning how to release your worries and concerns from your body and mind, join me on Sunday evening at 9:00pm EST to learn a 15 minute meditation practice that you can use at any time.
Sometimes, I will use this technique in a quick five minute window in a parking lot in the quiet of my car.
This technique would also be very beneficial if you like moving meditation (such as walking or running). You could easily visualize this while exercising and release worries or concerns from your body and mind.
If you would like to join us live on Sunday evening at 9pm (great way to prepare yourself for the coming week) then register here.
I had a different topic planned for this week, but as often happens, life had a plan of its own.
On Monday morning I made a spontaneous decision. As I was getting dressed to go workout, I put on my sports bra. When I went to grab a shirt, these thoughts crossed my mind (in about a 5 second period of time):
“Ugh…every single one of these options stink. I don’t like the feeling of any fabric touching my body when I start to sweat
If only I were a man. They work out all the time without a shirt
Well, women do too, they wear their sports bras. But I’m not small enough for that. You can’t work out in just a sports bra if you have fat rolls.
Wait.
That’s not true
I COULD work out in just a bra. No one is stopping me. It’s just my insecurity.
I do not like wearing a shirt. They all stick to me. I want to just wear a bra.
That’s it. I’m doing it. I’m going to pretend that this is a very normal occurrence and I’m going to walk out of the house in a sports bra and yoga pants. Women do this all the time. This is a normal thing in our society. I CAN do this. I am the only person stopping me from doing this.”
So I did it.
As I walked my dog around the pond, several strangers passed by. They all behaved very normally, so I behaved normally.
Each time I crossed someone else, I felt a little more free. I felt a little more bold.
It turns out that any BODY can go out in a bra and yoga pants. You do not have to be under size 10 to do so (the lie I was believing).
I posted about this experience on my Instagram and not only did I receive several comments, but my DMs blew up. So many women face insecurities about this as well.
With the encouragement from a friend, I put out a challenge and I want to share it with you too.
From now through Sunday night, if you post a photo of you working out in just your sports bra to Instagram (stories or a post) and tag me (@thesophiahyde), then you will be entered into a giveaway for one hour of coaching.
The real prize though is how you feel about yourself when you do it.
Yesterday I sold my baby. My car for the last 5 years was so precious to me. She helped us save $25,000, so I want to tell you all the lessons she taught us.
I have found that one of the largest financial mistakes many people make revolve around their car decisions.
When I was 20, I was not very wise. I bought my “dream car” that ended up being a financial disaster for us. At the time, these were the questions that mattered most to me, and they are the questions most people rank highest:
Do I like the aesthetic of the car?
Can I afford the payments?
How old is it?
THESE ARE THE WRONG QUESTIONS!
It’s not that they’re irreverent questions, it’s that they are not the MOST relevant.
After 10 years of no car payments (no waisted money on interest), minimal repair bills and THOUSANDS of dollars being reallocated to other parts of our budget, I want to share with you the RIGHT questions to ask when buying a car:
What are the maintenance reviews?
You can scour the internet for all the mad people. They complain about everything. Before purchasing a vehicle, we read all the horror stories and look for common themes. Many vehicles start needing major repairs around a certain mileage point. Maybe it’s a transmission at 50,000, or an engine at 70,000. There are almost always patterns. Look for a car that people love to rave about, verses complain about.
You can literally google “Cheapest cars to maintain” and read about the annual maintenance of vehicles. Those lists were how we made a decision on my husband’s car. It was consistently on every rating list of cheap to maintain, and it’s proven to be true.
How much life does this vehicle have?
Years on a vehicle are not very relevant. You want miles. You can have a one year old car that someone drove back and forth across the country or a ten year old car that was a grocery-getter. Read the reviews online about which mileage point the vehicle is typically at when people have to drop major cash on repairing it. Some vehicles you want to ditch before they even approach 100k.
Keep in mind, it’s not as important how many miles it has right now. The right question is “how many more miles until I have to sink a lot of money into repairs?” Both the cars we bought in college were SUPER low in mileage, and we thought that was good. Wrong. That was EXPENSIVE. Let someone else take the major depreciation hit. Buy a car that has tons of life left in it, but has taken a huge chunk of its depreciation already.
My baby I just sold was a 2000 Toyota Avalon. We bought her in 2016 with 94,000 miles. There were abundant reviews showing us they very regularly get over 300,000 miles. So yes, I bought a 16 year old car. However, she was a teenager in mileage terms and had tons of life left to go. I was able to sell it for only $2,800 less than what I paid after 5 years. The average car payment in America is $500 right now. You do the math. I saved a ton.
What does the local mechanic say?
I always talk to three different people who work on cars regularly to get their thoughts on a vehicle. They see the horror stories. They know what cars are in their shops constantly and which ones are a breeze to own. I am currently in the market for a minivan and narrowed it down to two based on everything I read online. I asked two local shops and both of them said “Oh definitely the option b. We are constantly having to work on option a. If you have an option b, we will hardly ever see you in here.”
Is the title clean?
Make sure you read the Carfax report. Sometimes something that looks like a great deal is because it’s been through a major repair. Maybe a flood. Maybe a car accident. You want to know the history of the vehicle to make sure you aren’t walking into a trap.
How much does it actually cost?
Many people just look at the payment, but there are many other factors to consider. How much will it be annually to maintain? How much does it cost to ensure this vehicle? What is the gas mileage? Does it take standard or premium gas? How much do these type of tires cost? Many people see an affordable payment, but don’t realize all the surprises hidden in owning the vehicle.
Best of luck on your next car purchase! I hope our mistakes help you avoid making the same ones we did!
Did you know that every now and then life will hand you a gift you probably won’t recognize?
When we have a major life-changing event, we are presented with an opportunity to create new habits at the snap of our fingers.
Traditionally, changing too many habits at once is nearly impossible. For most people, your brain experiences overwhelm, and after a brief period of time, you will revert back to what was comfortable. It has been proven that tackling one new habit at a time will set you up for the best long-term success.
However, there is one exception.
When you experience a major life change, you are forced to create all new habits at once.
Most of the time we are not consciously aware of this opportunity so we just stumble along until we find a new normal.
If intentional, you can set yourself up for great success, whether the new life change is positive or negative.
Personally, I am encountering this right now. Tomorrow is my last day at the job I’ve had for four years. Beginning Monday, I am officially self-employed. Everything about my routine will be changing. For four years I have had to shuffle every aspect of my life around the concrete blocks of 8:00-5:30pm being consumed by a full-time job and the commute to and from there.
Suddenly, come Monday morning, that giant block will disappear. Because of what I know about habits, I am choosing to consciously move into this space. Since I will be instantly forced to create new habits around my lunches and snacks, morning routine, evening routine, and time constraints, I can design them with intention.
This morning I sat down and reflected on my goals I set for the year. I attached every single one of them to a daily habit that could help me get there.
My challenge for you is that next time it feels like the rug is being pulled from underneath you and everything is changing in one moment, choose to see the opportunity. Regardless of whether the reason for the life change is positive or devastating, you are being handed a fresh start and can design your new normal. Choose your habits wisely and with intention.
Got a question or wanna chat about this topic? Text me at 813-946-6706.
Limiting beliefs are the most common obstacle holding us back.
A limiting belief is something we believe to be true about ourselves or our circumstances but is not based on fact. We THINK it’s a fact, but when we break it down, it’s a story we are telling ourselves is true.
Recently on a coaching call, I heard one of the most common limiting beliefs arise. I decided it was appropriate to address it on the blog because if you are using this language, it’s time to change it up.
The statement: I don’t have enough time to _______[insert something you claim is a priority to you]____________.
We hear this one all the time, don’t we? I don’t have enough time to exercise, eat right, spend quality time with my family, market my business, do my hobby, etc.
The reality may be that there truly is no margin left on your schedule. I have been there, but learn to reframe the situation to state what is a fact.
For example, I cut having a regular exercise routine out of my life for two years. I know. I know. I know. I am not advocating this to other people. I do not recommend it as a lifestyle choice, but it was a conscious decision I made.
Technically, I DID have time to exercise. There are were other things that could have been moved to make room for it, but I chose different priorities.
I had a baby I was breastfeeding, a full-time job, and decided to launch my business on the side. Getting two kids and myself ready, dropped off to childcare, and picked up was 11 hours of every Monday-Friday. Add the cooking, cleaning, laundry, bedtime routine, and quality time with them, and I had about 1 hour of margin a day I could squeeze in. On any given day, that one hour could be used for self-care, quality time with the husband, or working on my business.
I share that with you to say why language is important.
Instead of saying, “I don’t have time to exercise,” I would say “My health is still a high priority to me. For this season, taking care of my health looks like prioritizing a full night’s rest, making good choices with my food, and trying to get my heart rate up when I play with my kids.”
It was a conscious choice I made. I was not a victim. The calendar wasn’t controlling me. I knew I was in a temporary season with too many things on my plate to do it all. I chose my job, sleep, quality time with my family, and launching a new business over a routine exercise schedule.
If “not enough time” is something you find yourself complaining about, my recommendation is to start talking about time in the language of priorities. Not getting your full night’s rest every night? Be honest with yourself about why.
“Staying up late to ________ is more important to me than the health benefits of a full night’s rest.” Fill in your blank. Scroll social media? Read a book? Study? Check emails? Watch TV? Clean the house? I’ve consciously chosen to sacrifice a few hours of sleep for another priority on many occasions, so I’m not judging you. I’m just saying…call a spade a spade. It gives you a healthier perspective.
If the circumstances you are in have you feeling trapped, or you feel out of control, then my recommendation is to make a gameplan of how you will change the circumstance, not accept that it is a truth about how your life always has to be.
Sometimes the answer may be setting hard boundaries in relationships, or even ending ones that cannot be saved. It may look like asking for help, or looking for a new opportunity. Your solution could involve pivoting a new life direction, scaling back, leaning in, leaning out. Every situation is different.
You have the time to do what matters most to you.
Let the way you spend your time be a reflection of your priorities.
Thanks for making it to the end of this blog post! Two options to keep going if you want more:
Looking to get from where you are now to where you want to be? Entire the 5-day Mental Fitness Challenge. You can enter your email here and Monday-Friday next week, you will receive tips each morning to help you improve your mental spoke.
This week it’s time to get back to the basics. Although I refer to the “7 spokes” almost every week, it has been quite some time since we talked on the blog about what they are.
Our lives are a complex balance of many areas. If you’re anything like me, you often feel like an octopus trapped in a human body trying to balance more plates on your hands than possible. It’s normal.
In the Ziglar model I teach, we focus on 7 spokes of the Wheel of Life:
Mental
Physical (Health)
Spiritual
Personal (Self-Care)
Family
Career
Finances
Personally, I like to add an 8th bonus spoke that I track in my life, which is Philanthropy.
When I work with my coaching clients on achieving balance in their lives, the goal is never, ever to create an even wheel. There is no sense in striving for a goal that cannot be achieved. In the rare instances when it is achieved, it is never sustainable. That simply isn’t how life works.
Balance is when each of the spokes is healthy, stable and strong. Some areas may be stronger than others. Some may need more support and attention than others. This makes you human.
Each and every week as I assist in guiding my clients toward creating the lives they desire, the goal we are always working to achieve is growth. Growth is the goal.
My recommendation to everyone in the goal setting process is to ensure that you are intentionally monitoring each of these areas of your life, and looking for room for improvement. When any one of these areas are weak, they will drag down all the others.
Some spokes, when they become particularly high, can raise up the others. If someone is ever uncertain of which spoke to focus on first, I always recommend the mental spoke. It is the one spoke that when improved to the highest level you can attain, will naturally raise all the others.
The other spokes, it may not work out the same. You can have all the money in the world and lack strong relationships or your health. You can have the closest family ties and be completely broke. You can get into the best shape of your life while your career is suffering.
However, your mental spoke will lift up all the others. When you see things with a healthy perspective, are filled with gratitude, feel confident in your own skin, overflow with joy and have a positive attitude, the abundance will help every other spoke rise.
In January, I led a free five day mental fitness challenge. If you missed out on the opportunity and would love to take a peek at the material we covered, I am opening it back up. You can enter your email here and Monday-Friday next week, you will receive tips each morning to help you improve your mental spoke.
Did you know that you have a glass ceiling of joy? That most likely YOU are self-imposing? Several years ago I read The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. I had so many aha-moments that I have re-read it several times since. (And highly recommend it to everyone.)
In his book, Hendricks says that we have all created a limitation for how much joy we feel worthy of experiencing, and unless we intentionally overcome it, we will always self-sabotage to keep ourselves within our comfort zone.
One of the main things holding us back from experiencing more joy in life and achieving greater success is linked to our hidden barriers.
I had an experience with bullying in the 8th grade. Losing all my friends at age 14 went on to fundamentally change how I interacted in the world.
The short version of the story was that I was class president and editor-in-chief of the yearbook staff while continuously making straight A’s and achieving perfect attendance. Whereas I believed that the more successful and smart I was, the more people would like me, the reality was it had the opposite effect.
A group of girls decided to use rumors to take me down. It became “cool” to not like Sophia and people would pretend I was invisible. The turning point was when a girl told me,
“I’m actually really smart, but I don’t let people know because people like to feel good about themselves. So if they think they’re smarter than me, they will like me more.”
In that very vulnerable moment of my youth, I took her words as gospel. I tested it out and it worked. I applied it in high school and beyond, and it worked.
“Don’t be too successful and you will make everyone around you feel more comfortable.”
It was Hendrick’s book that helped me to realize how this experience created a “fear of outshining” in me, and why for the rest of my life I continued to stay at just above mediocrity so as to not make others feel uncomfortable in my presence.
I would love to say that 4 years later I have overcome this fear, but the reality is, I have not. It’s happening at such a subconscious level in me that it truly takes intention to recognize it and a conscious effort to push past it. I am a work in progress and constantly trying to remind myself that I am worthy of success. My comfort zone has become second place, and I am still trying to push past my fears and lean into my potential.
What is your glass ceiling? How are you holding yourself back from your greatest potential? In Hendrick’s book he spells out the four hidden barriers:
Hidden Barrier One: Feeling Fundamentally Flawed: You feel that something is wrong with you.
Hidden Barrier Two: Disloyalty and Abandonment: This is a belief that achieving success essentially means you have to leave your tribe.
Hidden Barrier Three: Believing that More Success Brings a Bigger Burden. This fear will immobilize you because you believe that the life you create will burden others and triggers the emotion of guilt.
Hidden Barrier Four: The Crime of Outshining: You believe that if you become too successful you will make others look bad.
In 2016 when I listened to this book on Audible, I started weeping as I drove down the road and learned about the “crime of outshining.” I had suppressed that 8th grade memory, but I immediately knew I had internalized it. Ever since, I have been working on giving myself permission to shine brightly. I often encourage myself by saying,
“If my light makes them feel uncomfortable, then they just need to put on sunglasses.”
What barrier is holding you back? Do any of the four listed above resonate with you? What fears do you actively have to overcome?
Thanks for making it to the end of this blog post! Two options to keep going if you want more:
Looking to get from where you are now to where you want to be? Then I highly recommend downloading the free E-book from my site, “Coach Yourself in 10 Minutes.” Just drop your email below and it will be sent to you.
This quote came across my Instagram stories last week, “You don’t inspire others by being perfect. You inspire them by how you deal with your imperfections.”
Immediately, I resonated with it at a very deep level. I had never been able to put language to what I was trying to create with this blog and in my coaching business, but this line said it all. If you have followed my content for any length of time, then you know I regularly interweave my mistakes with the lessons that accompanied them. My desire is to teach by walking alongside you, not by standing behind a podium on a platform pretending to have it all figured out.
So with that said, it’s time to circle back to a post from December, where we discussed the three recommendations to effective goal setting. As a recap, the three principles were:
Don’t set goals, solve problems
Focus on the habits
Have an abundance of love and grace
We are now six weeks into the new year, and chances are your goal chart is not trending perfectly up and to the right. Most of you have probably hit some bumps in the road. Let’s talk about those. Since I know most people learn best through stories, we will discuss the bumps through my own personal experiences in the first six weeks of 2021.
At the beginning of the year I set 9 goals for 2021, but knew I could not tackle them all at once. They needed to be handled a few at a time.
For this year, the spokes that needed to most attention were:
Financial
Upgrading from a sedan to a minivan (Also a family spoke goal)
Finishing our 6 month emergency fund (we began the year with 2 months)
Saving money toward a home upgrade (having 1 bathroom for a family of 4 has its moments 😉
Family
Finishing our home renovations so we can list our house
Capturing more photos and videos of my children (At 2 and 7 their childhood is in its prime and I want to treasure these days)
Health
Lose 20 pounds by prioritizing daily exercise and cleaner eating (long list of the reasons why I want to do this. They are all health benefits and quality of life connected. I love my body as she is, and want to take better care of her)
Self-Care
Prioritize stress management outlets
Career
Transition to full time coaching
Mental & Spiritual
Prioritize my meditation practice daily
It’s important for me to share my list of goals with you so that the rest of the content makes more sense.
It’s not wise to tackle all the goals at once. I knew I needed to pick three to focus specifically on for quarter 1 so the rest could fall into place over the course of the year.
For January, I decided to tackle my morning routine because it’s a foundational habit. It would help the mental, spiritual and physical goals that I set, which I believed would set me up for success everywhere else.
However, I hit some major roadblocks. Oftentimes, when trying to create new habits, we discover other habits that must first be addressed in order to create the space for the new habit to develop.
In my attempt to wake up earlier, I needed to go to bed earlier. In my attempt to go to bed earlier, I discovered just how much I had gotten accustomed to doing after the children went to bed. My 2020 routine had been to have the children in bed by 8pm and then I would sleep 11pm-7am. Trying to shift to a 5am wake up call meant a 9pm bedtime.
I truly thought I could do it on January 1st. However, as the month progressed, I realized that so many other spokes were getting completely neglected. I had created space in that time for my writing, cleaning my house, quality time with my husband and stress decompression. Going to bed earlier, so I could put new things into my morning routine that weren’t already in my life, proved to not be sustainable for me.
Something had to give, somewhere.
I already knew my plate was full and at maximum capacity. I told that to people regularly. However, I had convinced myself I could squeeze in some new habits. The truth was, I definitely could not. So what was going to go? Something could no longer fit.
The middle to end of January looked messy as I powered through deadlines and projects and intentionally let things fall through the cracks while my husband and I discussed a sustainable solution.
I had to shift the order I planned to accomplish my goals.
On January 1, the map I made for my year slated my career changes for Q3. I believed I could keep growing this business on the side of a career and make the leap later. Two weeks into the new year I proved I was wrong.
We re-evaluated the goals and realized that one goal on the list of 9 could be THE catalyst of change in every other area. The career spoke.
In 2020, my schedule looked like working a full time job for 40-50 hours a week, and then running this blog and coaching business for an average of 10 hours per week. If you go back and reread that list of 9 goals, imagine how much easier they would all be to accomplish if I transitioned into a career that allowed me to add back in 10-20 hours a week to my other spokes AND increased my income significantly.
I had to pivot.
I paused my January intentions of mastering my morning routine and set to figure out how to make the transition. And today, as I write this blog, I’m in that messy middle. I am working with the leadership at my dayjob to find a replacement and train her/him while I tie up any loose ends. Simultaneously, I am building a strong foundation for what is to come in the near future.
As I sit here in mid-February with none of my habits completely successful, I have the power to choose the story I tell myself. I know that I cannot yet check any boxes and declare one accomplished, but I can see that the stage is being set and preparations are underway.
Have you hit any roadblocks on your journey to accomplish your goals? What solutions are working for you? How are you overcoming the obstacles?
Do you realize you still have the power to accomplish everything you intended? What can you learn from what DIDN’T work last month? How can you be empowered by that experience instead of discouraged?
