Episode 215: Setting Our Own Course in Life & Career

Katie Flahive Class "Setting our own course. We are powerless over other people's expectations of us. We cannot control what they want, what they expect, or what they want us to do or be." Keep the focus on yourself. What other people think of me is none of my business.  Taking care of myself pays enormous dividends. Take care of yourself first, and the rest will follow. Put on your bubble suit. When you go into difficult situations with people who push your buttons, probably because they install them, it's really helpful to know that you have a little space around you that nobody can penetrate. "We can, however, control how we respond to other people's expectations." We are not responsible for our first thought, but we are responsible for our second.  I encourage you to stop taking a step back and ask yourself, "is this healthy for me or unhealthy for me?" And then responding. A response is a reaction with a pause and a thought behind it. "During the course of any day, people may make demands on our time, talents, energy, money, and emotions. We do not have to say yes to every request. No is a complete sentence. We do not have to feel guilty if we say no, and we do not have to allow the barrage of demands to control the course of our life."  They are on their time, but that doesn't mean it has to wreck my day.  No is a complete sentence. I do not bring stuff into my life anymore that I am not 1,000% committed to. "We do not have to spend our life reacting to others and to the course they would prefer we took in our life." We can, through core work, be strong enough in and of ourselves to know that we are enough. And keep the course steady ourselves.  As Diana Nyad said, "find a way, find a way to stay on course. Find a way to stay on course."  We can set boundaries. We can firm up limits on how far we will go with others. We can trust and listen to ourselves. We can set goals and direction for our life. And we can. This is so important to place value on our life, on what we want. We can own our power with people.  "Think about what you want. Consider how responding to another's need will affect the course of your life. We live our own life, not by letting other people, their expectations, and their demands control the course of our life. We can let them have their demands and their expectations, and we can allow them to have their feelings. But we can also own our own power to choose the path that is right for us."  Taking that time to plan out and think about what I want and my needs are. So it's finding that balance and setting my own course of maintaining the wonderful goals that I have already achieved, but yet still shooting for more. And not worrying about what anybody thinks. It's learning what is best for you and following that.