You Can Do Amazing Things

My name is Sandi McKenna, and this is Unforgettable Conversations. The podcast that is your roadmap to resilience, sharing, extraordinary stories from people, just like you and me who have weathered life's storms. You'll find inspiration and motivation in every episode.

Have you ever been stuck, unable to get out of your own way? Have you ever been overwhelmed, trying to find that work-life balance? My guest today, Hollie Rumman is the host of You Can Do Amazing Things. In today's conversation we'll talk about finding your passion, a positive mindset, building confidence, and creating good habits. Holly shares, many helpful tips and strategies to get you from being stuck to becoming motivated and taking action so you too can do amazing things. Now let's get this conversation started. Good Afternoon, Hollie

Hi, Sandi, how are you?

I'm doing great. It's so nice to have you here. And this conversation could not have come at a better time because I'm doing a lot of the things that I shouldn't be doing. I'm doubting myself. I'm procrastinating. I'm like, do I really know what my passion is. And you are an expert with all of these things and I've listened to, you speak on your podcast and it is so inspiring and motivating. I am really happy to have you here and share some of this wonderful knowledge with our listeners today. So why don't we start with self-doubt because as long as you're doubting yourself, you're never going to get anywhere.

Yeah, well, first of all, Sandi, thank you. You, you were very kind and that was very generous of you to talk like that. So thank you. And thanks for listening to the podcast, it's been really a joy for me actually, to, to really, talk about what, how has helped me and in hopes that I can inspire someone or help someone to do, you know, any of the things that has really made a difference in my life or, something that I might be stronger in that someone else isn't. And that's what I do. I go for who is stronger in other things. And I would teach me, right. So self-doubt is so common, right? We all struggle with it at times. And I think it goes to, you know, we listened to that little ugly voice in our head that we, um, sometimes can hear and we start to believe it. In fact, it's interesting. Just two days ago, one of our daughters told me mom, and they don't even listen to that podcast, which I don't expect teenagers to do. Right. She's like, mom, you don't even sound like yourself on the podcast. I'm like, what, what are you talking about? She's like, doesn't even sound like you it's just so, oh, so professional. So Sandi I started like the whole like, wait, but it's me. I think it's me. And you know, I'm almost going to listen to that self doubt creep in. And I talked to my friend. It does it, does it sound, um, but then you kind of have to go back to believing in a, what you're doing and. You know, thinking about the bigger picture. So in my case, I just started to think about, you know, what it's okay. Because I I'm hoping to help someone. And I'm just hoping that, you know, the value I bring will help one person. So I kind of let it go, but I also think if you're struggling with self. You have to look in the backpack of your life. And I I've heard that before, but I think it really relates to just your confidence and believing in yourself. And you gotta pull out all of the good things that you you have and what you're good at. And you sometimes forget, sometimes you forget about it because maybe they're behind you. Your all your accomplishments are the things that you've done. You're like, wow, I'm really good at that. What are you talking? Or have a conversation with your best friend, because even that, you know, ask that person just to kind of give you a boost and they'll tell you, they'll tell you all of the things like, you know what, Hey, Sandy, you are so good at, and they'll just give it to you because they know you so well. And sometimes we need that as women. And I think we need to be reminded of, of our gifts. And just to get that back in our head and not listen to that ugly voice.

that's so true because I have accomplished a lot and I have done a lot of things, but when you're in the moment, You don't look in the backpack. You just totally forget about it. That's such good advice. I'm going to unpack my backpack this afternoon and take a look and see, oh yeah, you did this. You did that. So we get through self-doubt but then we have to move forward. So we procrastinate and I'm the queen. I mean, last week I got hung up in some court case on YouTube and it just dragged me down the rabbit hole. So how do we stop procrastinating and start doing.

Yeah, that's a big one in our home too. I have, a couple of girls and a husband that can really be good with that. I think that sometimes I seem to be more disciplined, so not that I don't struggle with it because we all struggle with it, but I think the most important thing is you have to have that shutoff like that, the shut off of a time block or something that is a hard and fast rule that you're like, I'm going to spend this much time and that's it. And then you literally have to get up and start moving. The movement will get you into the next thing. So if you're sitting on Instagram or you're sitting down and you're getting in the rabbit hole, Sometimes I can get like that. And I'm like, I'm not doing anything. I'm not getting anything done. I put the phone down, I get up, I go do something, get some water, go to the bathroom, whatever. And I come back and say, okay, now my block of time is I'm going to spend this much time on this go. And it is. It's just building that discipline too. Right. You just have to get into the motion. And so my husband says that's easier said than done, you know, you just talk about you have to go back to a, what is your bigger goal? What are you looking to do? Right. Like how much do you want to accomplish and how do you want to feel at the end of the day? Right? If you, if you want to feel like I got nothing done today, which we've had those days and it's a bad feeling. You know, that's okay. But if you want to feel good about your day and I want to feel like I made the Domino's move. Right? I did this and the next is moving in. I want to feel good about that. I get something accomplished that, that just that movement, that action is huge. And planning is huge. There's so many things. I feel like every time I think about procrastination, it's, it's really a big one. Everyone struggles with it

and I find planning, I plan in my head, but sometimes when I plan in my head, it stays in my head.

I know.

So how do you plan? What are some tips that you can give people to create a plan and hopefully get through your procrastination?

Yeah. You know, one thing that's really helped me is that, I think sometimes I struggle with perfectionism. And so as a perfectionist you just overthink things. And then even if I'm, I'm doing what I need to do, I can overthink that one thing and get nothing done too. So it's not procrastinating, but it's like sitting in this thing and I'm not getting anything done. So one of the things that they tell you and this can go to procrastination is you want to write down and you don't have to, you don't have to have a specific day where you write down about your week. You know, you can be a little bit more flexible with that, but write down your three or four highlight, bigger things you want to accomplish. And I use Trello. I don't know if you use Trello, but I love Trello because it's very visual. I'm very visual. So I can put a cool picture in the background, but I have my list, my list for the week. And I have like the three bigger things and then I have a virtual bookshelf. So if I feel like in the week, I think, oh yeah, I want to do that. Or, oh yeah. I want to do that, but I don't need a deadline. I have a list for that. And it just, so I capture the moment and then the idea, but it's not to have too long of a two day. Because then I think we're just overwhelmed. I think that if we can identify the three or four main things we want to get done this week. So for example, if you know you're doing a podcast, you know, I want to make sure I have this written, this posted this, you know, those three or four things that is going to move you to the next thing, whatever your goal is. That's doable, that's doable and it's written, and it's an it's right on your desktop, or it has an app too, for your phone. So it syncs too. So that really kind of helps. So if you're on the go and you're like, oh shoot, I gotta do this. You can add it in your app. So I really think finding a tool that really works for you. Some people might be Google sheets or, um, it, it could be a Asana. It could be a variety of tools, but find one that works for you and when you, when you look at that daily, you have to analyze your day halfway through the day. Maybe even more often, did I get that done and kind of remember it, and then you think, oh shoot yeah, I'm off the path. And if you check in a little bit, every time, A couple of times a day and keep yourself on track. It really feels good, but you're like, I can do that this week. That's easy, and, and doable goals that gives you that success, that feeling of success. Now my other question is you mentioned overwhelmed. And one of the things that I find is, you know, some minutes in my day on the cleaning lady, other days, I'm the cook. Sometimes I'm a bus driver sometimes, I'm actually a professional, doing professional tasks. Okay. I mean, there are so many different components in any given day and now, especially two years into the pandemic, many of us work from home. And so how do you navigate that balance of being able to be all things like right now I've got, you know, laundry. And so, yeah, so it's not like in the day when I used to drive to the office and. Yeah, that was it. I, I shut the door and I would go to the office and I didn't have to deal with all those issues throughout the day, but somehow they creep in when you're here. Oh, yeah. I wish I, I wish I knew the magic answer to that, Sandi. I think that we all can feel overwhelmed for sure. You know, it's interesting. I just saw that on your podcast had a meditation, which I think is something that I'm really trying to work towards is meditating more often, because I think my brain feels like it's just all over the place sometimes, and I can't concentrate. And I think what the meditation does, it really calms your brain. It really allows you to just take that breath out. And then I think as we do that more often, I'm finding that it allows you to kind of focus a little bit, but one of the things that I think I work at home too, and I feel like I, I give myself some grace because yes, there's laundry. There's those that's dirty. That's the, you know, and you can see it all if you want to. But then at some point, give yourself some grace and then I think you just need to let a few things go. I think that we're really hard on ourselves. I think I'm really tough on myself and I did a podcast about how do you feel not behind in life. Right? You could always feel behind like, oh, I didn't do this and I didn't do this. And then at some point when you just need to stop, part of it is comparison of what we think we should be doing or, well, why aren't we doing it like that? Or how does she have this so clean or, you know, like stop, we need to stop and live our life. Right. So part of it is I don't want to feel that. I don't want to feel like, you know, oh, I have to post more on Instagram because of the algorithm and I'm not posting it's silly. And so we have to take a step back, I think, and just stop that comparison, give ourselves some grace because we have to identify that really important things. And then there's a piece of life we have to enjoy. We have to enjoy, right. I don't want to be sitting here overwhelmed by the laundry and all the lists to do. Right. I don't think that's an easy one, but I do think we can give ourselves some grace in that aspect.

I love the name of your podcast, which is you can do amazing things.

Thanks.

So how can we do amazing things? How can we find our passion in life?

You know, I, I think that is. It's just spoke to me so much because here here's what happened when, um, I might've told you this story before, but when our girls were younger and they were in junior high, and I remember I was not working at the time and someone in the park didn't even know me, came up to me and said, so what do you do? And I said, oh, you know, I'm taking care of the girls and it's, it's such a gift. And she's like, well, I'm just going to tell you, you need something. Hollie you need something for you. And I was like, wow. You know, she doesn't even know me. And, how did she just say that? And so, but you know what. I think about it now. And I think about when we get wrapped up in life, whether it's our kids or our careers or whatever, sometimes we don't stop and still do the thing that we love. And then we lose a little bit of ourselves. Like we almost feel like, what do I like now? So I really was feeling that before the podcast, I was like, wow, what am I doing for me? What, what is it that I love? So I, what I had to do is kind of look back on what I've done in jobs and coaching and all of these things. And I kind of pulled out that common thread and thought, what are the pieces of each of those things that I've done that brings me alive. And it goes back to, you know, just the things that light you up and the book by Jonathan Fields called Spark and he talks about that. We all have. The spark type, the personality that, that certain things bring you live, like bring you so much joy and then things kind of drain you. And so how do you identify those? How do you go after the things that just make you feel lit up? And so I, I found that looking back and identifying the pieces of when I did health coaching. When I did this, this look back in your life and figure out what are the things you loved about that and find that common thread. And go after that. What is it that then you can take those things and do something with that. That's just going to bring you that joy. And then when you do that, it's, it just moves you. It just, you don't even, it doesn't feel like work, right. It just, you just want to do it all the time. And I think that will really help. I think that we get to a place where we need that

and what is the philosophy behind you can do amazing things.

You know, I was talking to a lot of friends about the title before, um, I have that and, um, and I think it. It's because not everyone has the same goals, but we only, the confidence we all need that, that I could feel like I could do it, whether that be a fitness and health goal, or whether that be, I want to start a podcast or I want to, you know, I have this art and I want to sell it online. You know, so much of it is I see women that they don't have a confidence in themselves to, to go after it or they can't identify what is it? Right. So those are really the thing anything you do can be amazing. And if you can just go out there and put yourself out there and do it, you'll, you'll find so much joy in the process.

So how does one get out of your own way? I mean, we're always our worst enemy. Yeah. With a lot of things. So how do you, you know, when you're all of a sudden stuck, like the, the reason I'll be very honest here. The reason that my episode this week was not a conversation and it was a meditation is because I couldn't get out of my way and I couldn't figure out what I wanted to say this week. And then I thought to myself, well, maybe I'll say nothing. Maybe it's time to take a breath and I'll have a meditation this week instead of a conversation, but I could not get out of my own way. So how do you motivate somebody at that point when you're just so stuck?

Oh my gosh. That's such a good question because we've, we've all felt so stuck. So. I look back and I, and I've had conversations with even our girls and my husband and I've been stuck a couple of times, and I feel like, how do you get out of that? How do you just get out of that? And part of it is I go back and it sounds easier than it really is, but it is getting into motion because when you're stuck, you kinda just, uh, sit on the couch. I can't think I don't want to, you know, like you just, I don't, nothing's coming to me. I don't know. And so if you start taking action towards the thing you're stuck in. So if I were like, I, I was stuck in, you know, I was feeling like, what do I want to do? You know, what do I want to do next for me? So I literally just started reading, started reading and researching and things, just doing something towards a feeling of what am I stuck in. Maybe for you, you know, you're, you're so good at having the conversations. Like, you know, you probably were, we're like, oh, now what? But go back maybe to looking at your friends, thinking about your experiences, thinking about like there's so much you probably could have talked about, and then you just kind of like freeze. Right? And, and I think that if we, if we just start moving and start You know, learning, learning is a big thing. It's the making the progress is, is the big thing that gets us. It's like that, that wheel, that justice stuck and what it is, you just need oil. You just need to give it something to go. I know that sounds easy. It really is because when you are stuck, so maybe you need someone to give you that accountability piece, like tell them that you're really stuck and, and ask them questions or tell them to ask you questions. So you can kind of get your mind rolling again. You know, that's an accountability piece is huge too. I don't know Sandy, I did a whole podcast on it and I can't remember any I'm sure by bad guests will tell you three other stuffs.

I'll link that episode below, but I find too now, now that we're getting back in the world and we're having to, go to things with other people, For so long, everything has been on zoom and, and we've not had a lot of interpersonal interaction. I literally have these anxiety attacks thinking about, I had to go to a luncheon last week. There were about 40 or 50 people. I had such anxiety getting back into the world. What can we do to, you know, let go of that anxiety and enjoy life again. Uh, the anxiety piece is real. I think, especially if you are a little bit more introverted and I just heard someone speak about this, about, you know, like I'm so introverted, I don't want to go and, and, you know, be with anyone kind of thing. Now, I just like to be on my own while they were saying, if you never know. I handle or touch or hold a young monkey. His example was they would not make it in life and everybody needs connection. Everybody needs that. Right. So. I think there is a little bit of, of that anxiety or that, wow, I haven't done this before and it's kind of like, you don't want to do it. Like, I don't want to go out. I just told my friend, I'm like, I don't want to go, like, it's six 30 to an event at night. Like I want to be in my jammies, you know, but I do think that one thing that helps anxiety is the deep breathing, it really is a physical thing where it triggers that vagus nerve and it physically, if you do it from the belly, it physically calms you. It really calms you. So. This deep breathing is a big thing. So I'm not an expert on anxiety, but calming yourself and then just making it happen. And then once you're there. Uh, Sandy, I can never see you, not, you know, like you're so good. I can't even imagine you'd have anxiety, but you know, once you're there, it feels so much better. There's that resistance of kind of, from that point to getting there, it's kind of like when you're trying to exercise. Right. But there's that resistance parts that you have to make. Least resistant. Right. But you have to make that from the drive there or that walk downstairs, make that as easy as you can, because then once you're there, it's going to be so much better. Right. I agree. I totally agree. So in closing, what tips can you give someone just to get started? They want to make some changes in their life. They want to explore some other things. They want to try new things. What kind of advice can you give people to just get started?,

when I used to coach a lot of women in health and fitness, I found it so much more was about how we felt, and it was our brain more than eating or exercising. And so really focusing on getting more confident in yourself. And how are you feeling alone as you like being alone as you, you have to feel really good about yourself. The episode today was, six daily habits, how we can build our confidence and that to me, Sandi is such a huge part because when we're feeling better about ourselves, we kind of put ourselves out there more. We have more confidence to speak and have a conversation. There's so many things. So one of the habits is really our brain always is going to go to the negative. And so training our brain. Positive thoughts telling yourself, like, what do you tell yourself in the morning as you look in the mirror, as you get dressed, you're like, ah, this looks terrible on me. Or do you just like do the Mel Robbins and give yourself a high five, right? So it's training your brain. To give you, give yourself positive thoughts to become more confident. And it, it becomes like a really good cycle. So the more confidence you have, the more like, oh, I'm going to go do this. You'll feel better. And then you start, engaging with more people. You start feeling like a little bit more alive and you have a little bit more energy, and then maybe you want to take a little bit better care of your health, and then, then you start to feel better. It's you can see it. It kind of just. Into this positive cycle. And so I think what, as we, as women, as we get older, I think we almost. Lose a little bit of confidence. Oh, we forgot the beauty of who we are and what we have, and to not lose sight of that and to go and build that up, look back in your life and remember all of the things like, wow, I did all those things feel good about yourself and do something that will bring you joy and passion. Now, I think that's what I would say. Thank you, Holly. That's a perfect way to end the show. Thanks Sandy, for having me. I love talking to you.

Hollie exudes, such a positive energy. If you need more joy and purpose, or you're just looking for the tips and tools to get you to that next level, to reach that goal or simply find a little inspiration, listen to YOU CAN DO AMAZING THINGS. I'll put the link in the show notes. Until next time, have a wonderful week.