What Are You Most Proud Of?
steffani

What Are You Most Proud Of?

Someone asked me recently what I’m most proud. My answer was not what she expected. She expected me to say…

  • Writing a book
  • Or being a mom
  • Or starting my business
  • Or launching my coaching program
  • Or my relationship with my husband
  • Or my health and fitness

She rattled those off as potential ideas. But none of that is what I’m most proud of. I’m most proud… of FACING MY FEARS.

Facing my fears of being a mom, facing my fears of being a wife, facing my fears of writing a book, of coaching, of being vulnerable and being real and raw and open and putting myself out there in this world. THAT is what I’m most proud of.

That’s what moves me to tears and what keeps me going. Moving through my fears has been the most powerful thing I’ve ever done. And trust me when I say this. You can do it too.

You may not have a fear around being a mom like I did. Or around getting married. Or starting a business. But you have a fear. I know you do.

No matter what it is you CAN move through it. Once you identify it. (And I know that you know what it is…) Then you have to move past it.

Or it will own you. It has no power over you unless you let it. YOU control your reality. Face your fears… head on. Do what you thought you couldn’t do. And watch your life unfold in a bigger way then you ever imagined.

Xxx,

Steff

 

Have you been longing to live the life you always wanted, but it always feels just out of reach? I’m here to help you take back your dreams. It takes a village, and that’s why I’ve built a community of women just like you who are ready to master their mindsets! Join us here: http://badassmommindset.com/

Mastering Your Mindset
steffani

Mastering Your Mindset

If you’re a Mom I think you can relate to this story…  It happened to me a few years ago.

I was going in for my son’s first-grade parent-teacher conference.

I walked into the school, my head spinning with thoughts of doubt. I was skeptical about putting my son into public school from the beginning.  

I had these limiting beliefs that public school wouldn’t work for him, and unfortunately, I had these beliefs and thoughts enough that they started playing out.

He wasn’t having a great first-grade experience. During this conference, the teacher began telling me what my son was doing wrong, and how disappointed she was in him, how he didn’t try hard enough and had too much energy. She proceeded to tell me how “kids like him needed to be on medication” (which is something that legally teachers can’t tell parents).

Unfortunately, I started getting quite upset, pissed off actually, and then I exploded on her… “I don’t think there is anything wrong with my son, I think there is something wrong with you” – I just went off on her. I freaked out.

You see what happened there?  My anger trumped everything.

My anger took over and it transformed the entire situation. It was no longer her fault, it was now mine.

My anger and eruption overpowered what she had done (which in my eyes was clearly wrong). And now here I was, the one who needed to apologize. I was the one who lost control. So it was now my fault.

Anger puts us in a place where we are no longer focussing on the original issue, we are now apologizing for our anger and that becomes the issue.  

This epic mom-fail made me realize how badly I needed to master my mindset.

I want to share with you 4 Transformational Tips that helped me to put my anger to rest and master my thoughts, words, and emotions. Watch this video for a face to face inside scoop! 👇

#1 Awareness is the master of discipline. 

You can’t shift your shit if you don’t know what you need to shift. You must know where your negative thoughts are coming from, and know that you’re setting a negative mindset. Know that you CAN step out of these overwhelming thoughts.

We have to know where our negative thoughts are coming from, we have to know why we’re focussing on these anxieties and that we’re setting these negative mindsets by complaining and basking in our negative habits.

We have to know all of the dirty thoughts are creating these messy lives that we don’t want to live in, and we have to know that our overwhelm thoughts are creating more overwhelm. We have to know what pieces of our mind we need to shift to successfully shift our lives.

#2  Anger trumps everything.

It runs the show and it takes over. We can’t take control back until we can control our reactions and our anger.

When we’re in a situation with our children, and they’re doing something wrong and we respond with anger, that anger we display trumps their behavior (meaning that nothing else that happened matters anymore once we’ve gone off our rails).

When you master your mindset you will mastering your emotions as well and you will no longer be so quick to explode and respond with anger

#3 We are in control.

When we truly claim that and take responsibility we can change it! We are in control of our thoughts, our emotions, and our triggers. Our thoughts are the light switch to our emotions. When we’re aware we are in control we can make change.

My thoughts when I was sitting in this conference were “they don’t get my son”, “he’s not meant to be here”, “nobody understands him”, and “I knew this was going to happen”. “This teacher is awful”.

My thoughts created this trigger that flipped the light switch to my emotions.

When we control our thoughts, the thoughts can create a reality around what we DO want.

This is good news!

There is no puppeteer up there, we don’t have to feel like a victim to our own thoughts. We are in control. We can start directing our subconscious thoughts. It’s like muscle memory, and we can create the habit

Something I like to do is use a cancel process. A cancel process is when you cancel the negative thought and replace it with a positive thought.

Now when I have a thought of “oh my son isn’t meant for public school”, my thought becomes “My son is thriving”.  You see, he wasn’t really having a negative experience, I was living a negative experience through him.

My anger trumped all.

I apologized to this teacher and told her “I am so sorry and this has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with me”. He is having a really good experience, it was all of my stuff that I was spurging onto this teacher.

When I look back at this I think about how I could’ve handled it better. I should’ve said I’m going to need to end this conference and pick up where we left off tomorrow and said “here is where things went wrong for me”. That would’ve been so much better.

When you feel like you’re in a place where your heart rate is pumping and you NEED to say something that is usually when you need to take a step back and think on things.

I am in control of my triggers, I am in control of my emotions, and I am in control of my mindset.

A trigger is like a thorn under your skin, and we expect nobody to bump into us and hit our triggers.. But it’s not the world’s job not to trigger us. It’s ours.

It’s our job to be in control of our thoughts, emotions, triggers, and DIG IT UP.

Change your perception, and change your world.

# 4 What you think about, and focus on you get more of.

The more I thought about my son not working in public school, the more I saw that. So I started thinking about him thriving, I started thinking about him feeling understood and having great social and emotional education there.

What you set your mind on you’ll get more of! That’s why I think this mindset work is SO important.

Are you ready to master your mindset?

bad momI hope that you’ll join me, I have a Badass Mom Mindset Online Retreat happening August 21st. It is 21 days long, as it takes 21 days to build a habit. For 21 straight days, we are going to share and grow together.

I am going to share tips and tools, and we are going to go through these steps as a community. There will be a secret Badass Mom Mindset facebook group.

 

Some of the things we are going to go over are:

 

>How to stay positive when you’re around a lot of negativity

> How to remove your triggers for good

> The mindset around our excuses, our negative intentions, our unreasonable expectations, negative self-talk, our limiting fears and beliefs about being a mom that become a root of all these triggers and limits and things that hold us back from living a life we really love.

> 5-10 min videos/audios every day to raise your life to next level! Little by little, a little becomes A LOT.

And SO much more! Let me show you.

I can’t wait to see you there!

Xxx,

Steff

P.S. Have you been longing to live the life you always wanted, but it always feels just out of reach? I’m here to help you take back your dreams. It takes a village, and that’s why I’ve built a community of women just like you who are ready to master their mindsets! Join us here: http://badassmommindset.com/

P.P.S. This is why I love helping Badass Moms rock their dream lives!

 

 

 

11 years ago I did something I never thought I’d do…
steffani

11 years ago I did something I never thought I’d do…

I got married….

I didn’t just get married. I got married to my childhood crush.

I remember sitting at McDonalds with my girlfriends when I was 15 telling them how much I liked this boy John LeFevour. They quickly talked me out of it since he was so young. Only 11 years old at the time.

How could I consider dating a 5th grader???!!! At the time he was too young. But there was something about him. So I told him he’d make a good boyfriend in 10 years.

And he asked me to wait for him.

Who does that at 11 years old?! John LeFevour does.

10 years later we ran into each other at a bar in our hometown. We were both single. I remember asking him how old he was to make sure he was old enough. 😊 He was 21 and I was 25. Now that’s not a bad age difference. He asked me if I was finally ready to go out with him. I thought it would be a fun summer fling.

10 years later to the day we got married. In a midnight ceremony. On our 10 year anniversary.

Contrary to what most people think when you date someone for 10 years before you get married, I didn’t have to give him an ultimatum.

It was HE who had to convince ME.

See I never WANTED to get married. I was afraid it was too hard. I was afraid people changed after marriage. I was afraid married people lost love for each other and never had sex. I was afraid I would marry my Dad. I was afraid my life wouldn’t be full and fun and spontaneous.

After we’d been dating for 8 years something shifted. I realized John wasn’t changing. And that he wasn’t going anywhere.

Then he got sober. And completely changed the game on me.

One night after he was out of rehab and was sober almost a year we were out to dinner, and we were talking about regrets.

If we died tomorrow would we have any regrets?

And it hit me….

I would regret not marrying him.

I never told him that. I was still too afraid.

2 months later he proposed. And I said yes.

It hasn’t always been easy. I had plenty of doubts. I doubted myself. I doubted John. I doubted the institution of marriage.

But when I look back at it all I really never doubted US. No matter what we went through over these last 21 years together my faith in US has been unwavering.

He has proved every one of my fears wrong. You CAN have a wild, spontaneous, happy, healthy, sexy, fun marriage. You CAN grow together not apart. You CAN break your old pattern and not marry your Dad. The love never dies. The sex is still great. And we CAN both continue to reinvent ourselves. And have a better life together than we would apart.

I never wanted to get married…

But I NEEDED to get married. To complete my soul’s mission.

John and I have done this dance many times. 😊😍And it was meant to be again.

I’m so grateful I had faith. I so grateful we persevered. I’m so grateful I faced my fears and I said YES. I’m so grateful that he knew. That he always knew.

My life with John is better than I could ever imagine a life could be.

If I could tell my 15-year-old self one thing I would say…kiss him now, don’t wait.