Work Harder On Yourself Than Anything Else

This title has become a theme in my life lately. So as ou may or may not know, I started working on myself physically in August of 2015 when I did my first AdvoCare 24 day Jumpstart. Since then, I've had a number of mental moments including but not limited to: depression, anxiety, and self deprecation. I've made little adjustments to relieve those incidents. Made changes in my personal life, adjust my finances around, made time here and there for myself, started working out for my sanity, began yoga. So I've put in some hours trying to figure this thing out. But you know what, I still have worked hard enough on myself.

You see, I'm a constant work in progress and will be until the day I stop breathing. Earlier this month, I went to AdvoCare's Success School. It's a huge event with lots of information but one of my favorite parts is the inspiration and motivation that pours into that stadium. It's truly an amazing experience. Work harder on yourself  than anything else was one of my biggest takeaways that weekend. I realized that while I had been working on my physical self , my surrounding environment, and my outside stressors but not once had I worked on me from the inside. I talked about it but I didn't really put in the work.

Shortly after, Success School, I started listening to the "Notes on Success." It's a compilation of messages recorded on various occasions by late AdvoCare Founder, Charles E. Ragus. It's incredible. I've listened to it 4 times in the last two weeks. Yes, it's that powerful. Once again, that phrase appeared. "You have to work harder on you than anything else..." And since I've heard it 4 times now it's really started to make me think. It made me want to really look inside and see what I could do about me. To see what changes I could make inside of me that would release ripples of change, ripples of success, ripples of grace and kindness, into the world around me.

I had made some goals after that trip to Texas and one of them was reading a leadership book every other month. That doesn't sound like much, but I also read for fun so my idea was that I could mix in leadership and fantasy world reading and create balance. I didn't know what kind of book or have an idea of a title but I was gonna do it. Fast forward, to last week and a friend posting about hosting an online book study group on The Fringe Hours, (see my post yesterday), and although it wasn't technically a leadership book it is about making you better by taking care of you. And really taking care of you enables you to be the best leader you can be. I'm so glad I did that. I'm so glad I took that step. I've never done a book study with a anyone so it was something new, but my heart knew it was something important.

I've also noticed the people around me are searching for this too. Seeing something in their life isn't where it should be. Not knowing what it is or where to start fixing it and I think they may be where I am. Needing to look inside and see what to do there. You don't have to post a big blog post like me, this is my therapy. But you can take a small quiet step just for you to make some of those inner changes. Because you can only control what you can control so don't try to do the impossible. We're all in a season and seasons change so getting overwhelmed isn't gonna help. 

I have taken some real steps to becoming my best me by looking at the woman in the mirror, to paraphrase Michael Jackson. I have to be the change I want to see in the world. It's about not giving up on the things I tell myself I'm gonna do for me. Yesterday, I posted a question on facebook asking for some different self love/self empowerment books and I got quite a few suggestions, especially in my inbox. So I created a wishlist on Amazon for myself and you can click on it and explore the titles for yourself. Head's up all the titles are not the most family friendly so just beware if that's something that bothers you. But these were suggestions given to me both faith and non faith based.

I hope you find a gem  Let me know if you found something different to add to the list. Or if this rings at all true to you. Maybe if you just need someone to talk to. I'll do my best, just like I know you will too. Now go out and be happy, little, beautiful humans surrounded in the good vibes you're sending out!