“There’s always an excuse. Find your reason,” C. René Washington.

Welcome to Midlife Woman Redefined, a podcast for women near retirement who are ready to step into a new chapter of freedom, travel, and fulfillment. If you’re ready to focus on figuring out who you are and what you really want, this is the place for you. Here’s your host, master certified life coach, travel addict, and midlife maven, René Washington.

Hello, sister mavens. This is C. René Washington, your life coach and your midlife maven. And we are here for episode 10 of Midlife Woman Redefined. Oh my gosh, we are here for episode 10. I love saying that because I love milestones. And I am just beyond thrilled that I’ve made it to episode 10 and that you’ve been on this journey with me.

So today, we are talking about are you doing your dream or dragging your dream? Are you doing your dream or dragging your dream? Before we delve into that, what do we do? We celebrate. You already know what I’m celebrating. What are you celebrating? And remember, it is so important to pause, I believe daily, but as often as possible to reflect upon something that you have personally accomplished.

We’re building that muscle, women, that a lot of us don’t have, to focus on ourselves and to say yes, I did that, and I’m glad about it. So just take a moment to pause and reflect on something. It could be something as small as you said no to using your time in a way that you didn’t want to, or you said yes to taking some personal time for yourself, or you said, “I think I want to take that trip, let me block it off on my calendar. Let me make that call. Let me book that airline ticket.” Whatever it is, it’s something you have done for yourself. Take a moment to celebrate.

Now, this is episode 10, as I said. And this podcast is the realization of a big dream for me and it’s something that, as far back as six months ago, I didn’t even see a path to actually creating, yet here we are. And I want to break that down for you. I’ve told you on a previous episode that I was inspired to go ahead and do this podcast at a coaching event.

I am a coach and I hire coaches, and I’m part of a mastermind, a business coaching mastermind. And there were two women at a live event that was connected to this mastermind who stood up and told us about how they created their respective podcasts. And they were taking us all through the nuts and bolts of what they did and what they do on a daily and weekly basis.

And as I listened to that, I heard what they were saying about the mechanics of creating a podcast, but what resonated the most with me was that they had actually done it. And I asked myself, “Why haven’t you? You say you want to do this, why haven’t you done it?” And I had no more excuses, no good reasons to not do the podcast.

And so, I returned home and I made it happen. Now that’s the short version. The truth goes back further than that, to my actually becoming a coach, becoming a life coach. I coached during my corporate career, and when I retired, I thought I was done with work.

And I will tell people that, “Oh, I accidentally started this business.” And I’m not saying that anymore because it wasn’t an accident. I coach women to stay open and aware to life’s possibilities and that’s how I live my life too.  I stay open and aware to the possibilities of my life. And oh my gosh, when you do that, amazing things happen; things that you don’t even imagine.

And this is how I ended up doing this podcast because when I said yes to becoming a life coach, it connected me to a whole new world. It connected me to some of the most amazing women on the planet and it has connected me to one new experience after another. And I keep saying yes to myself.

No, it’s not easy. Yes, I’ve had low, low moments when I wanted to give it all up, when I didn’t know what to do the next day, or even in the next moment. But what I did know was I am on the right path; it will all turn out well. Don’t give up on myself. Don’t give up on myself – breaking down how you do your dream, for me, connects to the framework that I coach women around. Who am I? What do I want?  How do I get it?

What’s your who am I? My who am I is I am a woman who loves living life full tilt in freedom and purpose and helping as many women as possible do the same. That’s my who am I. What do I want? I want to live life on my own terms.  For me, those terms connect to living in god’s will for my life, staying open to life’s possibilities, and going after those possibilities – not that all of them will be right for me. That’s okay. It’s all information. It’s all information. I no longer get caught up on so called failure, it’s just information. Course-correct, pivot, keep it moving.

And then the lest piece is, how do I get it? How do I get what I want? There’s an intangible piece to that, and a tangible piece to that. The intangible is ditching mind crap, ditching your mind crap – free your mind and your ass will follow. I believe that. I know that that’s true. This is the work that I do; limiting beliefs, self-sabotaging, procrastination, other people’s perception, how do we work ourselves through all of that?

And I say our because I’m a part of that too. I’m continuously working on my mind crap. And until you do that, you will just keep spinning in circles. You have to have that process. That’s why I talk about that week after week. And my favorite way to do that is messaging. Messaging, I’m continuously overlaying that inner critic with positive messaging that works for me.

And not just fake fa-la-la-la-la messaging. No, messaging that is true, messaging that is real and messaging that keeps me moving forward. And I receive validation. The more I move on the path that’s meant for me, the more that I walk in my purpose, the more validation I receive.

When I hot those low moments, god sends me a lifeline. God sends me a lifeline. Before I recorded this podcast, I received two messages from two amazing women in my life.

One of the messages was from a really good friend who’s been supportive of me throughout this entire journey. And she said that she was listening to episode five, Creating the Recipe. “It was great. You’re doing such a wonderful job with this. I still have to pinch myself and say I know this woman.”

And then I received another message from the woman who is one of my biggest inspirations for even becoming a life coach because she was the first real life coach that I knew in person, that I actually knew. I had followed some other life coaches from afar, but she was the one that I could actually touch and say, “I know her.” And she inspired me to take this leap.

She sent me this message, “I put you on my speaker and listened while I cooked dinner and all I can say is, wowza. I was doing a happy dance with the spoon in my hand. I left a review for you titled The Body Compass and, of course, gave you five stars because they didn’t offer the option of 10 stars. Way to step up and step way out, girlfriend. I’m proud to know you and to see you shine so brightly.”

When you step into your dream, the validation will come, and it will come in different ways, through people. I see messaging everywhere I go. I purposefully have messaging around me. I have messaging around me as I record this podcast. I have a button that says, “Show the world what you stand for.” I have these rocks that say things like, “Ignore all the critics. Offer your help. You have all you need. Keep your promise.”

So I keep good messaging around me. And then, when I’m out in the world, I run up on amazing messaging. And it’s because I stay open and aware. I stay open and aware.

When I was in Paris, I saw that someone had chalked freedom in the street. I saw messaging on the walls of buildings. Everywhere I go now, I see something that speaks to me. This is what happens when you move in your purpose. That’s how you do your dream.

Dragging your dream intangibly is excuses, you know. Do you give yourself excuses? I’ve heard a lot of excuses. I was talking to a woman who wants to become more healthy, take better care of herself. And I mentioned my trainer to her. And the first thing out of her mouth was, “I can’t afford that.”

Now, I stay out of people’s wallets, typically, however, I did know that this was not true for her and I challenged her on that. And so then her next thing was, “Oh, I don’t have the time.” Still not true.

I think I’ve told the story on another podcast episode about the woman that I worked with a while back who, the first time we tried to work together, I knew that she was in some dire financial straits and so I offered to coach her for $25 an hour. And I put $25 around it because I know that you do need to have a little skin in the game for commitment purposes. So that was something she could do.

She never showed up. She never showed up. She was so excited about it, so grateful, she never showed up. Much later, she actually became a client at a much higher rate. Her circumstances had changed. And she admitted it wasn’t about the money.  She was afraid to face her crap – afraid to face her crap.

And what I coach women on is that if you are not happy with your life now then you’re doing hard; you’re doing hard now. Yes, it’s hard to face your crap and work through it, but on the other side of that is a whole new life that you can’t even truly see yet.

So do the hard that works for you. Stop doing the hard that just keeps getting harder. Make the hard work for you, not against you. My mom was actually the first life coach that I knew. She didn’t know she was a life coach, but I just observed her and how people would talk to her and how she communicated with them and how objective she was in helping other people.

And, you know, we have this thing about being selfish by focusing on what we want to do. No, it’s selfish not to. It’s selfish to sit on your unique gift and talent. It’s selfish to sit on your purpose and your passion because it benefits other people. Maybe not on a world stage, maybe on a very small stage.

I talk about my mother dying and how many people that her death impacted, that on the same day she died, Steven Jobs – Steven Jobs, of course, you know is the creator of Apple – and Fred Shuttlesworth – who was a well-known civil rights activist from the civil rights era – they both died the same day as my mom.

Many, many, many more people know about them than knew about my mom. But in her sphere of influence, she was just as revered. She was just as impactful. And so we need to stop telling ourselves the lie that we can’t do our dream, that we shouldn’t do our dream. You are doing the world a disservice when you live in that lie.

And I talk about the joy of doing your dream and just living life because joy sparks creativity. That’s why I talk about celebrating. That’s why I talk about passion. That’s why I talk about pleasure, because that feeds creativity and that we all have the inner artist in us to create and design the lives we want to live. I believe that. I know it’s true.

And so I am, again, so grateful and so thankful for all of you being here. And I want you to think about those three questions, who am I? What do I want? How do I get it?

I talked about the how do I get it from a place of the intangible, working through your mind crap and the messaging that you can do. And then there’s the tangible piece to make it a dream come true, the nuts and bolts, for me, of how you actually put a podcast together.

What are the nuts and bolts that will bring your dream to reality? For me, I had to decide, was I going to do this myself? Was I a DIY woman, a do it yourself woman? Or am I a DFY woman, done for you woman? I am a DFY, done for you.

And as I say, there is help for you, for whatever you need now, we have access to so much information, so many resources. There is no excuse for you not to do the doggone thing. Done for you, for me, in putting together a podcast was reaching out to my community and asking, who does this? Who does podcast setup?

And a company was recommended to me, Digital Freedom Productions, Pavel and his wife Angela and their team member Michaela; fantabulous. I love them. All I have to do is create the episode, deliver the episode. They do everything else to get it out into the world. I love that. That’s what works for me. You decide what works for you. Just don’t decide that there isn’t a way. That’s a lie. There is.

So now, it’s time for me, as promised, to pull the first winner of the $100 Amazon gift card – that’s been my promotion to encourage you to rate and review. And let me just say, the rating and reviewing, I’m not asking you to give me great reviews. I’m asking you to give me your feedback, suggestions, criticisms, whatever resonates with you, I’m here for all of it.

I just want to hear from you. It’s very important. And so I want to thank all of you who not only show up and listen, but who take that extra step to leave a rating and a review. And to select the first winner, I am messaging by pulling the first winner from a beautiful ceramic dish that I bought from this woman I know, Leigh Barnes, who is a wonderful artist. She’s someone I know form my corporate life. She’s still working and she is also pursuing her dream on the side.

She does these beautiful renderings of sunflowers. She paints sunflowers, my favorite flower. And she also does ceramic pottery. And I purchased a dish, and that’s what I’m using to pull the first winner from because I want to message you that just as she found a way to do her dream, so can you.

And our first winner is, Lisa Vogt. Thank you so much, Lisa, for taking the time to leave a review. I will get in touch with you to get you that gift card and I am just so excited for reaching this milestone and for seeing my dream come to realization. And in my dream coming to realization, I hope that it’s helping you to pursue your dreams.

And I just want to end with reading a small passage from a wonderful book that one of my clients gifted me. I have the best clients. And the name of the book is Now Is The Time For Dreams. How apropos. And I’m just going to read a snippet of it, so you may hear some pages turning.

“It’s time to conjure up absurd plans, bold actions, and lofty goals. Reveal your biggest dreams. Unwrap them and dust them off. Collect all the luminous thoughts that glow inside of you and send them floating and spinning into the world. It’s time to drop the second guesses, the maybes, and the not quite so sures. Let go of the hesitations, the procrastinations, and the what could go wrongs. Throw away your scripts, your charts, and your maps, with their straight little lines telling you where to go next. Ditch the comparisons, the bellwethers, the precedents, and those joneses. It’s time to veer off course. Go on, shut your eyes, and fly by the beating of your eager heart. Now is the time for wild thinking and daring first steps. This is the moment, the precise moment that everything can begin, but only if you do the hard thing, the biggest thing; start.”

Yes, isn’t that the hardest thing sometimes? The hardest thing sometimes can be simply to start. And so I encourage all of you to take that first turtle step towards your dream. It can be something as simple as Googling information on it and then take another step. If there’s someone you need to contact, if there’s a course you need to take, whatever the thing is, break it up into little steps that keep you moving forward toward reaching your dream. And if you need help and accountability, get help and accountability. Stop dragging your dreams with excuses.

And so, I end episode 10 thanking you again for showing up, encouraging you to leave me a message about what you think about the show, and you can do that at crenecoach.com/podcastlaunch. The link is provided in the show notes. And I want you to always remember, if you do have a dream and you just need a plan, every week, I’ll be here sharing tips, resources, tools, and real-life examples of making that dream a reality.

Remember, living well is the only option.

Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of Midlife Woman Redefined. If you’re ready to learn more and reclaim your time, head over to crenecoach.com.