SUMMARY KEYWORDS

drinking less, live more, midlife unraveling, set goals, vision board, positive affirmations, self-care, sobriety starter kit, alcohol-free life, personal growth, overcoming fear, surround yourself, manifest dreams, daily reminders, create happiness, repetition is reality

SPEAKERS: Casey McGuire Davidson + Ruby Warrington

00:02

Welcome to the Hello Someday Podcast, the podcast for busy women who are ready to drink less and live more. I’m Casey McGuire Davidson, ex-red wine girl turned life coach helping women create lives they love without alcohol. But it wasn’t that long ago that I was anxious, overwhelmed, and drinking a bottle of wine and night to unwind. I thought that wine was the glue, holding my life together, helping me cope with my kids, my stressful job and my busy life. I didn’t realize that my love affair with drinking was making me more anxious and less able to manage my responsibilities.

In this podcast, my goal is to teach you the tried and true secrets of creating and living a life you don’t want to escape from.

Each week, I’ll bring you tools, lessons and conversations to help you drink less and live more. I’ll teach you how to navigate our drinking obsessed culture without a bus, how to sit with your emotions, when you’re lonely or angry, frustrated or overwhelmed, how to self soothe without a drink, and how to turn the decision to stop drinking from your worst case scenario to the best decision of your life.

I am so glad you’re here. Now let’s get started.

 

Hey, there. Today we are talking about

 

how to stop drinking and start living fully in the new year.

 

As the year draws to a close, I want you to think about where you want to be and who you want to be and what you want to feel and experience in your life a year from today, because for years, my New Year’s resolutions had one constant, regardless of what else was on my list.

 

There was always some version of, this year I will drink less or get my drinking under control, or take a break from drinking, or, alternatively, take better care of myself, or get healthier, or work out more, which we’re really all code for, some version of I am going to stop sitting on my couch drinking too much wine or going out and not remembering the end of the night, or drink less. And don’t eat so much crap so I can lose weight or Stop waking up hungover with anxiety and talking shit to myself, or some version of that combination.

 

I was sick of making the exact same resolutions every year and then failing to achieve them, and today, I want to help you avoid that pitfall. I want to show you, once and for all, how to successfully keep your wants and dreams and goals top of mind so you stop making promises and then quitting on yourself.

 

Right now, in this moment, it’s the perfect time to think about what you actually want in your life, what you want more of and what you’ve been settling for so far, and to realize that you deserve more.

 

There’s a Brené Brown quote I love where she writes about what she calls, Not A Midlife Crisis, but a Midlife Unraveling.

And here’s what she says,

midlife is when the universe gently places her hands upon your shoulders, pulls you close, and whispers in your ear. I’m not screwing around. Time is growing short. There are unexplored adventures ahead of you. You can’t live the rest of your life worried about what other people think courage and daring are coursing through your veins. You were made to live and love with your whole heart. It’s time to show up.And I know that’s easier said than done, but there’s a reason that our lives are the way they are, and your life, honestly, it’s probably not that bad.

 

A lot of women in midlife live pretty good lives where they love their families or their friends. They’ve grown up and they’ve worked hard, and they’ve achieved some measure of success that they’re really proud of. Sometimes you’ve climbed the corporate ladder, or you’ve built a business, or you’ve raised beautiful children, or have had great adventures. We all have a lot to be grateful for and a lot to be proud of.

 

But if you’re like me, or, more specifically, the way I was living when I was drinking, I wasn’t completely in love with my life. Life. I mean, I loved a lot about my life, my husband’s, my kids, my home, my friends, day to day, I was running from one place to another, trying to meet the needs of my work and my boss, trying to take care of my family, trying to manage my responsibilities and my schedule, my to-do list, my rewards and dreams at the time were something like a vacation I was looking forward to, or happy hours with a girlfriend, or a date night with my husband, or to sleep through the night or to sleep in.

 

And a lot of times, my reward and what I actually wanted more than anything was to open a bottle of wine at the end of the day. And I hear this from a lot of women. They say, I have all these great things in my life. I have so much to be grateful for. You know, first world problems. I like my life. But why aren’t I happy? And whether it’s their job or their schedule or just the day to day mundane shit in life, they look around and they’re asking, Is this what adulting is? Is this how it’s supposed to feel? Am I meant to just grip my teeth and put my head down and plow forward for another 10 or another 15 years. And by the way, I hear this not just from women who drink a lot. I also hear this from so many of my friends from college, from women I’ve worked with in the corporate world, or my girlfriend’s from high school. It’s not that life is bad, it’s just that you feel like you’re settling for a life that feels good enough, rather than one that feels awesome. You’re not living the life you imagined you would when you were young and you were looking 20 years ahead. So, I want to show you, as we’re finishing out this year and heading into a new one, how to actually change what you’ve been doing up until now, so that one year from now, you’re not sitting here making the exact same resolutions you’ve made for the previous three years and you’re not still feeling stuck.

 

So first, let’s just talk about how most of us go through life. Some of us start the new year all excited with new year’s resolutions and things we want to change in our lives, and with the motivation to make it happen. And some of us start the year kind of defeated, I mean, really fucking tired, right? Realizing that your day to day life is kind of a slog.

 

Maybe you hate Sunday nights, where you feel dread about going to work on Monday mornings, or you feel trapped. You work, you come home, you do things for your family. You feel stressed and anxious, and then you repeat it again. Maybe what you look forward to is just a coffee break with a girlfriend, or likely, wine at night or a TV show you want to check out and numb out, and then you sleep poorly, and you get up and you repeat it again, and that’s what you call a reward. Maybe you’ve stopped dreaming. You look around and you say, my life’s not great, but it’s good enough. I’m not sure why I don’t feel really happy and fulfilled, but I’m going to plan another vacation and get a massage and plan a girls night out, and that will make me happy. And don’t get me wrong, I love girls’ nights, and I love massages, and I love vacations, but it’s not going to fulfill you. I mean, it’s not exactly living the life you’ve dreamed about. And you might say, who does live the life they dream about like this is the real world. Come on, Casey, but let’s talk about it.

 

So, imagine you’re starting this new year. You are out of your funk.

You are doing this whole new year, new you thing. You set your goals, and you write in your journal, and you make your plan for how you’re going to work out four days a week, or start a new passion project, or stop drinking or whatever it is, and then two weeks go by, or two months go by, and all of your best intentions fly out the window.

 

You look up and you look around you and you’ve gotten totally bogged down by the day to day realities and responsibilities of your life, and you’ve kind of forgotten about how pumped up you were in the beginning and when you were thinking, this is what I really want, and this is what I’m going to do, and I’m going to make this happen, and you’ve sort of convinced yourself that it doesn’t really matter anyway, or you didn’t really want it that bad, or maybe it wasn’t practical, or it’s not a priority, or you don’t have the luxury to do those things that you were all fired up to do, or you tell yourself that it won’t happen anyway. So, what’s the point in trying which, by the way, it was the inspiration of my coaching business name and for this podcast, you tell yourself that you will do what you really want to do, or what you dream about.

 

Someday you will have time and energy to focus on your dreams someday, someday in retirement, or when your work lets up, or when your kids are older, or when you’ve saved more money, or when your boss isn’t such a nightmare, or when life gets easier.

 

So, what happens is your life stays the same, and another year goes by, and it’s not bad.

 

It’s actually pretty good sometimes, but it’s a bit of a slog. And basically, you settle for good enough, and that can go on for a really long time.

 

So, let’s get back to what Brené said.

She said,

midlife is when the universe gently places her hands on your shoulders, she pulls you in close, and she whispers in your ear, I am not screwing around. Time is growing short. There are unexplored adventures ahead of you, it’s time to show up.

 

So, let’s talk about what to do, because time is growing short. There are unexpected adventures ahead of you, and it is time to show up. How do you bring the things that you occasionally think about that you get all fired up about to light. How do you not forget about them when you get bogged down? How do you actually make them happen? How do you stop getting so distracted and make the things that are actually important to you, a priority, and there are a few big things that stop us from achieving our dreams, and it’s not your schedule or your kids or your job or the amount of money you have in your bank account.

 

If you’re listening to this, the first thing that might be keeping you stuck is the way you’re drinking. If you’re anything like I was, it’s possible that you’re settling for a pretty poor reward at the end of the day, to check out, to numb out, to lift you up for a very small interval of time, which then pretty quickly results in poor sleep and extra anxiety and brain fog and feeling shitty, and then promising yourself that you’ll drink less or less often, and then rationalizing your drinking again, rinse and repeat. It is hard to think about your dreams or make forward progress when you are basically trying to just make it through the day until you can open a bottle of wine or a beer or a cocktail, you don’t have the time, the energy, the focus or the inspiration to reach for more. You’re pacified by alcohol content, even for the evening, to tread water in a boozy, Buzzy place, and then shuffle through the next day until you can do it again. And I wanted to share with you, because when you’re drinking, you probably don’t realize the degree to which it is keeping you stuck. It is stopping you from achieving the dreams you have for yourself.

 

I have someone in my Sobriety Starter Kit member group who posted today about hitting 100 days and I wanted to read you what she said.

 

She said,

I’m so happy to have made it to day 100 I have so many thoughts about where I am now compared to 100 days ago. And what I’m noticing and feeling is this sense of finally, at age 49 learning how to truly take care of me. I’m learning to say no, learning to put myself back on the to-do list, and learning to lower the bar and let go of so much. I noticed the “should”-ing is get massively questioned and let go of I have a new whisper of joy inside of me. It’s hard to explain, but it’s a big shift from the constant overwhelmed feeling that used to plague me. I feel like the fog is lifting from my mind and my eyes. I can see where there’s work to be done, still on myself and on my marriage and on my habits, but I have a sense of hope now. My confidence is slowly returning. I feel less social anxiety this year than ever before, and I think it’s because I’m becoming happier with myself. I am committing now for six months alcohol free, and I cannot wait to see the changes in my life.

 

Then I’m sharing that with you, because when we talk about how to bring the things that are important to you in your life, when time is growing short, how do you stop from getting distracted and bogged down in your life. If you’re drinking, it is keeping you just getting through the day. It is choosing this pretty shitty reward that is letting you check out and numb out or lift you up again for a very small interval of time, which then results in poor sleep and anxiety, brain fog, feeling shitty, feeling less joy, feeling less confident, and then promising yourself that you will drink less or less often, rationalizing drinking again, rinse and repeat. It is hard to think about your dreams or make forward progress when you are in that cycle. So, as you look forward to the new year and you’re thinking about I want to make things different this year. I want to shift all these things that I keep telling myself I’m going to do in my life, or I just want to feel less overwhelmed. I want to feel more joy. I want to feel more confident. I want to feel more in charge and prioritized in my own life. Take this opportunity to stop drinking for a period of time. This woman in my group, she stopped for 100 days, and you’ve heard how much has shifted in her life in just three months. So, if you’re thinking about Dry January because you want things to change in your life, please jump in.

 

The second thing that stops us from achieving our dreams is fear. It’s our negative self-talk, it’s our limiting beliefs, and it’s the things that we are consciously or unconsciously doing to save ourselves from embarrassment or ridicule or failure. It is the things we do to keep ourselves small so that our lives look good on the outside, even though they might not feel really good on the inside.

 

And Brené Brown, she talks about this too in the Midlife Unraveling. So, you’re going through life, and she says all of this pretending and performing these coping mechanisms that you’ve developed to protect yourself from feeling inadequate and from getting hurt they have to go your armor is preventing you from growing into your gifts. I understand that you needed these protections when you were small. I understand that you believed your armor could help you secure all of the things you needed to feel worthy and lovable, but you’re still searching, and you’re more lost than ever.

 

We all have decades of resistance and fear and self-doubt and self-criticism. They are so entrenched, and we have this inner critic voice that is so automatic. We have these thoughts, and we don’t even realize them, it’s hard to escape. So, how do you let those two things go so that you can move forward in your life to a place of inspiration and happiness?

 

I have a quote next to my mirror that reminds me.

 

It says, decide what it is you want, make a fucking plan and work on it every single day.

 

That’s the right concept, but it’s actually the wrong energy. It doesn’t work to do this in a punitive way, and in a way that you’re white knuckling it.

 

That’s the way most of us have done it in the past, where we say, this year, I’m not going to drink, I’m going to go running every day, I’m going to do the whole 30. I’m going to wake up at 6am. I’m going to be grateful, and everything else that is a sure way to fail.

 

What we want to make different this year is to go into this in a softer and more sustainable way that will help you make long lasting changes after motivation runs out and after willpower goes away, because it’ll only take you so far.

 

This is about identifying what you want, how you want to feel and who you want to be. What you would like to change in your life, and up level and modify your life, realize the habits, the mindset, the limiting beliefs, those are the ones that are keeping you stuck, and then keep your vision top of mind so that you’re able to make small, incremental, daily choices to align with your big goals.

 

So, let’s start with a very basic concept, repetition is reality. Now, I don’t know who said this quote originally, but it is 100% true. It is not what you say to everyone else that determines your life. It is what you whisper to yourself that has the greatest power.

 

Now, I love Jen Sincero. She’s written all of the, You Are The Badass books. And if you’ve listened to this podcast, I know you’ve probably heard me talk about her before.

 

She writes, whatever we’ve got on repeat becomes a reality. What we look at every day, our thoughts, what we read, what we listen to, what we talk about and most of all what we tell ourselves, repetition becomes your reality.

 

It really does. So, this repetition is your reality concept is the reason why repeating affirmations is so effective, why putting up inspiring messages and creating a vision board and looking at your vision board over and over again? It’s why it’s so powerful. Why hanging out with kick-ass people who are talking about and doing kick-ass things? Why it’s important? Why being diligent about being grateful is transformative by putting post it notes all around your house about all the things you want to remember and channel and internalize, why that’s worth it, despite any shit you might get from your kids about it. Because, trust me, I have gotten some side eye about all the vision boards and quotes I have around my house.

 

You need to take stock of what you have on auto loop and upgrade anything that is not supporting you. Jen reminds us to pay attention to what comes out of our mouth when you talk to coworkers, the thoughts that go through your mind when you look in the mirror or when you watch TV. You need to pay attention to the way the books you read, the podcasts you listen to, the foods you eat, the news you consume, and the people you hang out with. How do they make you feel?

 

So, here’s something I hear from the women I know who just aren’t that happy. What if you don’t know what you want in your life? So, you’re looking at this new year, you know that you feel good enough, but not great, or you know you feel crappy, and you want something to change, but you don’t actually know what it is you want in your life. And here’s what I tell them. It is actually not as important to know what you want to do with your life as it is to know what makes you feel good. And that’s the very first quote I put on my first vision board right when I was quitting drinking. I actually created it 2 months before I stopped drinking, and it was not some great vision of what I wanted to do with my life or achieve in my life or bring into my life, because I was nowhere near that point.

 

It was actually this quote, and it said, create a life that feels good on the inside, not just one that looks good on the outside and around it.

 

I put pictures of my baby looking all cute. There was a picture of Paris because I traveled there, and I loved it. There was a picture of me when I was younger on a scooter in Nantucket, and a picture of a field in the sunshine and my family, and a picture of Croatia, just because it’s so beautiful there. And that’s what I needed at the time. I needed to create a life that actually felt good on the inside as I navigated day to day, as I woke up. Up in the morning on a Thursday, not just a life that looked really good on the outside, because my life probably looked good on Instagram. But here’s where I was. I was drinking a bottle of wine a night and feeling like shit and talking crap to myself every morning and slogging my way through life. I slept too little, and I felt too much anxiety, and I hoped that no one noticed, and that was my life.

 

I actually wrote this to myself in some of my lower moments when I was drinking.

 

I said, Can I have a life of peace and optimism and happiness? I don’t know. I am stuck in a place of fear. I wake up at 3am almost tingling all over my body with anxiety and sadness. I am so tired every morning I feel deeply unhappy. I’m insecure about work projects and life decisions and my future security. I have no emotional reserves or good will to handle changes. It feels like every new request will break me. I wake up with a dull ache behind my eyes. I spend all day recovering. I sleep terribly. I feel defensive, guilty, paranoid, anxious, annoyed, wanting to hide, resentful and angry. Why am I angry? And I always want more wine. It’s never enough. I am putting my life, my plans and all forward progress on hold. What is wrong with me?

 

So that’s how I felt. But no one in my life knew that I’d go around with a smile on my face at work and pulling myself together every morning and dropping my daughter at daycare and texting my friends and going to school conferences and taking my kids to sports and going on business trips and all the rest. And it looked pretty good, but I wasn’t really happy.

 

I was gritting my teeth a lot and asking myself if this is the way that life is supposed to feel, and if this is what adulting was, and it’s not, it’s not what adulting or your life is supposed to feel like.

You’re just keeping yourself pacified by alcohol and checked out enough to stay in this place. And that quote about creating a life that feels good on the inside, it actually helped me quit drinking. I put it on the inside of my pantry, and every morning and every night when I opened the door, I internalized the message that I needed to create a life that felt good on the inside, not just the one that I was putting on Facebook and Instagram of my date nights out with my glass of wine in front of me, not just the one that looked good on the outside. And next to that quote, there were images of things that weren’t a wine glass and weren’t a bottle, things that would really make me happy. And as I looked at it, I remembered how it felt to be 27 and to rent a scooter by myself in Nantucket and to drive around the island and take photographs of lighthouses and buy a sandwich and sit on a beach. And I was like, I want more of that in my life, not more hangovers and shakiness and groundhog days. And I saw that quote every morning, and the quote meant to me in shorthand, don’t drink.

 

So, if you don’t know what you want in your life this new year, that’s okay. Again, it’s not as important to know what you want to do with your life as it is to know what makes you feel good, as Jen writes in, You’re Badass Every Day. Practice paying close attention to how different people, thoughts, places, ideas, things, the songs you listen to, activities, the foods you eat, clothing, how they make you feel, and let the good feelings guide you through your day. Imagine that your brain was removed from your body, and all you had to use to make your everyday decisions were your feelings, no logical thinking, no memories of how things are or how they’ll probably turn out, no judgments or fears that you’ll look like an idiot or disappoint someone or break something. How would things change for you? Try moving through an entire day really noticing and responding to how things feel in your gut with an empty mind.

 

So, if you’re listening to this, try to do that today and then again tomorrow. Move through an entire day and pay close attention to how things make you feel and let good feelings guide you through the day. Now, I have always been a more is more and more is better kind of girl. So, that was not the only quote I put up. I put one up right next to my mirror in the early days of sobriety, that said, make a list of things that make you happy. Make a list of things you do every day, compare the list, adjust accordingly.

 

You deserve to be happy, and you deserve to enjoy your everyday existence. That is not selfish, and you actually have the power to change how you feel every day. You have the power to change things. I want you to hear this. No matter what your to-do list and what your Google calendar looks like, you are not trapped. And I get it. You’re sitting here and you’re thinking, Casey, I can’t change my fucking job and my house and my marriage or whatever it is that is tripping you up. But I want you to believe that small changes, small improvements, small shifts, they inevitably lead to big ones.

 

My changes, in the beginning, they were really small. I stopped eating lunch at my desk every day while staring at my computer. I started working out in the mornings with a group of women who turned into really good friends. I stopped drinking wine. I started going to bed early, sleeping through the night and waking up feeling rested. I started blocking off my calendar at work and going for a walk every day at 2pm. I ate protein at 4pm, so I wasn’t going into the witching hour driving home and picking up my kids when I was starving. Those things made me happy. They were the opposite of the things I was doing before. Small changes, they do lead to bigger ones. So, start making your list.

 

And in the spirit of Morris, more, I definitely had a few more quotes on my early vision board that helped remind me and motivated me to keep me going on the whole not drinking path in the early days, when it was really hard, and I was really fragile. Here are a few I had up.

 

One was by Julia Riley.

 

And it said, I already know what giving up feels like. I want to see what happens when I don’t. And if you’re listening to this as you start the new year, as you’re thinking about Dry January as you’re looking for support, take the chance to try again. Take the chance to move through January and then continue not drinking, because you already know what it’s like to give up. To start saying, you’re not going to drink, and on day 4 or day 7 or day 16, give up. You deserve to see. You deserve to see what happens when you don’t.

 

That quote meant something to me because I knew, and I’d known for the better part of 20 years what my life looked like when I was drinking in my early days. I was just going to go for 100 days without alcohol, which was very scary, because I could barely imagine making it two weeks. But that quote inspired me. It reminded me when I saw it twice a day, that I wanted to see what happened when I didn’t give up. I wanted to see what 100 days looked like. I wanted to see what it felt like. And I internalized that message. So, if I wanted to drink, I thought to myself, I already know what giving up feels like. I want to see what happens when I don’t and that thought kept me going.

Casey McGuire Davidson  19:04

If you’re listening to this episode and have been trying to take a break from drinking, but keep starting and stopping and starting again, I want to invite you to take a look at my on demand coaching course, The Sobriety Starter Kit®. The Sobriety Starter Kit® is an online self study, sober coaching course that will help you quit drinking and build a life you love without alcohol without white knuckling it or hating the process. The course includes the exact step-by-step coaching framework I work through with my private coaching clients, but at a much more affordable price than one-on-one coaching. And The Sobriety Starter Kit® is ready, waiting and available to support you anytime you need it, when it fits into your schedule.  You don’t need to work your life around group meetings or classes at a specific day or time. This course is not a 30 day challenge, or a one day at a time approach. Instead, it’s a step-by-step formula for changing your relationship with alcohol. The course will help you turn the decision to stop drinking from your worst case scenario to the best decision of your life. You will sleep better and have more energy, you’ll look better and feel better, you’ll have more patience and less anxiety. And with my approach you won’t feel deprived or isolated in the process. So if you’re interested in learning more about all the details, please go to www.sobrietystarterkit.com. You can start at any time and I would love to see you in the course.

Another one I had up was, you will find that it is necessary to let things go for the simple reason that they are heavy. And that symbolized, for me my drinking habit. I needed to let it go because it was heavy.

 

The third one I loved was,

 

I am learning to love the sound of my feet walking away from things not meant for me.

 

And in the beginning that meant drinking or not drinking. After that, it meant leaving my corporate job. But that quote helped me reframe what I was doing and in not drinking, it helped me think that instead of depriving myself or that I was damaged or that I was missing out on something, it simplified it to something that was just an evolution, a new season in my life, and in this moment, it’s a perfect time for an evolution and a new season in your life. I was just walking away from something that was no longer meant for me, because it was heavy, because I knew what pudding felt like and that I was going to learn the set, and I was going to learn to love the sound of my feet doing just that. I mentioned that quote actually also helped me later in life, to have the courage to walk away from 20 years in the corporate world and to go into coaching, I read that quote, and I thought to myself, as I considered leaving my job, that I was just walking away from something that was never really meant for me, and instead, I was honoring who I actually was and what I actually wanted, instead of worrying about what I should do, what other people might think, or any of that shit.

 

And in early sobriety, I also needed a daily reminder of things that I could do, and I could embrace and enjoy without drinking, the joys and the pleasures that weren’t in a bottle. And I put up a quote to remind me of that, because I have to tell you when you’re in the early days or when shit happens, or when you’re frustrated, or a lot of times when you’re bored, you just don’t think of these things.

 

You are mired in your existence, and your feelings and your mind and your thoughts are on auto loop.

 

And so, if you put this quote up, this message, you will see it. You will see it a bunch of times until you will just internalize it and repeat it back to yourself. And so, the quote I had up, and I now have framed in my home office.

 

It says, you will need coffee shops and sunsets and road trips. You will need airplanes and passports and new songs and old songs. But most of all, you will need other people. And you will need to be that other person to someone else, a living, breathing, screaming invitation to believe in better things. And that quote was written by Jamie Tarkowski.

 

I hope that you can see the difference between seeing these messages every day and how they grounded me and inspired me and put what I was doing, these changes I was making, in a positive light as something I actually wanted for myself, instead of what it looked like if I were to tell myself on January 1 that I’m not going to drink again, and then constantly renegotiating and debating that decision and noticing every negative thing that comes along. Motivation ebbs and flows. Willpower fades but reminders, changing your internal automatic thought loop, replacing those conditioned thoughts, grounding yourself in what you actually want, keeping that vision in front of you that will sustain you long before New Year’s resolutions fade.

 

So, during the days, in my first alcohol-free challenge, when times were hard and I wanted a bottle of wine, I would rethink that, and I would internalize and say to myself, No, I know what giving up feels like. I want to see what happens when I don’t.

 

I would say to myself, yeah, I want that glass of wine, but I am creating a life that feels good on the inside.

 

I would remind myself that I am loving the sound of my feet walking away from things not meant for me. I don’t need another headache and a hangover. I need coffee shops and sunsets and scooters on Nantucket and beaches and lighthouses. And most of all, I need other people who are living, breathing, screaming, invitation to believe in better things. And if you like any of these quotes, any of these messages, I’ve got something for you.

 

So, it literally took me months and years to gather up all the messages that inspired me in sobriety. And a while ago for my clients, I created a free vision board starter kit, and I put that together in a PDF, so you can download it. And it has all of my favorite messages in there like over 100 to get you started. And I’m not suggesting that you need 100. I started with that first quote in my pantry and then added my second one by my mirror in my bedroom. But I do suggest you download it. That you look through it, and you pick 3 or 4 messages that resonate with you, that you read them, and you think that’s what I need, that’s what I want in my life.

 

So, if you want that, just go to my website. You can go to hellosomedaycoaching.com/vision-board-kit. And I’ll put that URL in the show notes of this episode, so you can find that by going to hellosomedaycoaching.com/246.

 

I actually want you to get started on this. I want you to do this now, to do this today, to do this this weekend, and I want to tell you that this practice, that replacing negative thoughts, putting up inspiring messages that you will internalize, is actually great for other things in life, not just for stopping drinking.

 

This practice helped me after I was sober, to tackle other fears and limiting beliefs and things that I wanted, but I never kept up the initiative to actually work for and things that I told myself that wouldn’t happen or couldn’t happen or were just stupid. So, for example, when I was getting at the courage to start coaching, to leave my corporate salary and security and my title, which, let’s get honest, was really tied up with my ego and my sense of self-worth. I had all these messages front and center, and one was a quote from Nelson Mandela that said, may your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears, because I knew that part of what was holding me back was I was living in this fear based scarcity mindset. I was scared to leave the corporate world. I was scared that I would fail as a coach, that I wouldn’t find another good job, that I wouldn’t have enough money, or I wouldn’t have enough retirement for my kids college.

 

So, the quote on the board that said, may your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears. It reminded me that I didn’t want to live that way. I didn’t want my life to be driven by my fears.

 

Another one by Howard Thurman said, don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and go do that, because what the world needs is more people who have come alive. And that helped me replace all those thoughts about what I should do and what was responsible.

 

And Elizabeth Gilbert wrote once that was a great reminder that I still have up by my mirror, and I see it every morning when I get dressed, it said, you have to participate relentlessly in the manifestation of your own blessings. Here’s the thing, nobody is ever really ready to make a big change, you have to start before you’re ready. You have to put things up that remind you consistently of what you want, what you want to go for. And that doesn’t mean that you have to go out and put your head down and work like a dog, no, but you do have to remind yourself daily about what would make you happy, what you want in your life, keep it front and center, and suddenly you will just make small choices that will eventually lead you to that goal. The way you can manifest can help you with a whole bunch of other things. I mean, I dealt with a lot of self-doubt and insecurity and fear of judgment or criticism from others. I call myself a recovering people pleaser, but I’ve gotten by this point many years after I stopped drinking. Really far along in my people pleasing recovery, but I had a ton of that when I was thinking about going into coaching school, and I had all these thoughts like, I can’t tell people I’m a fucking life coach. Like, what is that? Is that a joke that’s not even a real job? And one of my husband’s friends who I saw this weekend, who is one of my biggest cheerleaders. Dollars now, but when he heard that I was leaving my Director job to become a Life Coach, he said to my husband, Oh, I thought Life Coaching was for people who couldn’t make it in the corporate world. And that comment, it went right through my heart, because that was my deepest fear, that being a Life Coach wasn’t a real job, and what would people think? So, I needed to put messages on my board that would rewire those negative thoughts and replace them with new thoughts that would help me reach my goal, because I could have been stuck in the corporate world or stuck drinking for another 15 years, and guess what? It didn’t make me happy. It made me anxious. And I didn’t want to be on the road and on business trips. I wanted to be working and doing something I loved, but I’m a homebody. I wanted to be home with my kids. I didn’t want to hold out for 2 weeks of vacation a year, or that being my carrot at the end of 12 months. So, I actually put images on my board of some role models that inspired me, Jens and Sarah for real.

 

She was on my vision board, and also Amy Porterfield, who I’m pretty sure you don’t know who she is, but she’s an entrepreneur and a podcaster, and I really wanted to do what she’s done, but in a different way. I started putting up quotes like, stop taking directions from people who aren’t going where you’re headed. And that was a big one for me. I needed to stop taking directions from my boss or my mom or my sister, or people who had no idea where I wanted to go because they weren’t me and they haven’t been there.

 

Another one I loved said, If you ever find yourself talking about me, make sure you finish off with, she’s doing her own thing though. And that, was, for me, just for being like, even if people were talking about me, which was a big fear of mine, I’m doing my own thin.

 

And I put one up that said, caring about what other people think is pointless. Most people don’t even know what they think about themselves and your needs, your goals.

 

If you want to stop drinking or do something else with your life, these may not be the messages you need. You may need different ones, but the idea is that the thing that is holding you back the most is your internal voice, your internal critic, your fears, your rationalizations about what is possible.

 

Now, I will also say that if you are drinking, that is 100% keeping you stuck. You literally don’t have the brain space, the energy, the capacity those three hours at night, sleeping through the night, getting up your mind thinking about, should I drink? Should I not drink? Should I cut back? That will keep you stuck, because you literally don’t have the energy to move forward.

 

So, that is step one. But alongside that, whatever it is you want in your life, you need to keep it in front of you. If you want to go to Greece, put an image up of the island you want to go to if you want to shift your job. Put up something that reminds you that you are looking for and hoping for, and your intention is to move away from that into something new, turn your most repeated negative inner critic thoughts inside out, find the opposite and put that affirmation up as a reminder. It will help you so much.

 

You can use this strategy even when hard things happen and when shitty things happen. For me, I needed that a lot when things like reorganizations happened at work or layoffs. And I can even think back of these affirmations when I think about having a problem with drinking and when I struggled and when I moved past it. I couldn’t see it then, but I see it now. So clearly, you can turn those negative thought patterns into a positive and more constructive direction. You can actually retrain your brain from pessimism to optimism, from scarcity to abundance.

 

There was a time when my son was 6 years old, and I was leaving a company after 5 years. I was super worried about what would happen with a young kid and a mortgage and not knowing what I was going to do next. And during my last 2 weeks at the office, my husband actually gave me a quote to put up on my bulletin board because I was just constantly catastrophizing in my mind. And it said, not to spoil the ending, but everything is going to be okay. And I needed to see that. I needed it right in front of me. It helped me to trust the universe and give up some control and give up living in fear and feeling like a victim. Instead, I just started to believe that everything was going to be okay. And it’s a quote that I actually have in my universe jar. And yep, I have a universe jar. And if that is too woo for you, I get it. And that is totally okay. You don’t have to do all of this. These are things that sort of helped me over a couple of years.

 

Start small, start with one quote that resonates with you, but I have a glass mason jar that has a top, and in it I put all the things that I’m worried about that I don’t know the answer to, that I’m scared of, or I don’t know which direction to take. And on it, it says, whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt, the universe is unfolding as it should. And I write down what I’m worried about, and I hand it over to the universe. I put these problems and worries into the jar, the ones that keep me up at night, that make my stomach twist because I don’t know what to do. And then, I let it go as much as I can, and I can come back to it a month later or 6 months later, and I can be like, Holy shit, that actually did work out okay. Or if it didn’t work out okay, I was strong enough to get through it, or things changed. But in hindsight, it was something that wasn’t working for me in the first place.

 

And it’s important to remember and follow your dreams. So, think about what your dreams are. I learned this in coaching school. If you want something and aren’t getting it, it is almost always an internal block, meaning it’s something that is stuck within you. Your fears, your limiting beliefs, your assumptions of what can happen. It is almost never a real external block, meaning this literally cannot happen. You cannot do it.

 

There is zero chance in the world that you can achieve what you want. So, for example, if you want to move to Hawaii someday. Here are a few steps to get you started. Research which island you want to live with, and go find a picture of a house you would love to live in. Research what the local coffee shop is and put a picture of it on the corner of your vision board, and get a map of the neighborhood, and boom, you have put it out in the universe. And I know that sounds crazy, but what that means is it’s just reminding you about what you want, versus thinking about it once or twice and then forgetting about it until your next new year’s resolution.

 

If you keep what you want as a priority top of mind, you will slowly but surely make choices that move you in that direction. Forget about logistics right now. I will tell you though, what is not going to happen if you think about it, get excited about it and then dismiss it as stupid or impossible or indulgent or selfish and shove it away in a drawer if you want to live in Hawaii and this is your one life. You deserve that. Why not? And it may not happen right away, but it can happen. It is not impossible.

 

So, once you put a dream you want something inspiring out there, suddenly you will notice small signs everywhere that you are on the right path. I call it your divine breadcrumbs. You may not know what the end goal is but just go. But just go in a direction that feels good, and suddenly you’ll notice someone, and they’ll bring an idea to you or a project to you or something, and you’ll see it, and you’ll be like, Wow, that’s cool. Follow that, and you’re going to be led in sort of this zigzag path to something amazing. So, follow those divine breadcrumbs, or pay attention to what feels good, what inspires you, what lights you up, because otherwise we walk around with blinders on. We dismiss what we really want, or even what we kind of want as. Impossible or frivolous or silly or selfish, we push it out of our head, and more importantly, we never mention it to anyone. And guess what? Nothing happens. So, dream a little bit. It’s not silly. Keep it front and center.

 

 

Get excited about all of the possibilities and mention it casually to others, and suddenly other people know and have information and suggestions, or a friend of a friend who is working on a similar thing or is also doing X, Y, Z.

 

So, this actually happened to me once with my friend Amy. We were in an early morning workout group, and we randomly at 6:30 in the morning. We used to work at 5:30 to 6:30 we went to Coffee with 2 other women, and we were sitting there, and she was like, Yeah, I’m a nurse. Had a big hospital, but I’m kind of over it. I don’t really like it. I really want to be a Coach someday. And I was like, Oh my God, I want to be a Coach, too. I’ve been thinking about it, but I’m probably 5 years off. And I said to her, Hey, you should really read this book I’ve been listening to. It’s by Jen Sincero. You Are A Badass. Because she was like, the money will never work, and it’s just impossible. And I said, Oh, Jen has this book called, You Are A Badass At Making Money. It totally inspired me someday, dot, dot, dot. I’ll do it, but I’m a ways off right now. I’m working at L’Oréal. I need to save up some money. I have all this stuff going on with the kids, whatever. And so, Amy, a couple days later, came back to our morning workout group and said, Casey, I’m fucking doing it. And I was like, What are you talking about? I totally forgotten about it. And she was like, I listened to the book, You’re A Badass. I found this coaching program. I talked to the admissions guy. I talked to my husband about the money. I think she even took out a second mortgage on their house to pay for it. And she was like, I’m doing this. And then, I was like, what if you’re doing it, I want to do it, too. I mean, I thought this was 5 years off in my life, and I was like, Who’s the guy you talk to? What program is it if you’re going to do it? Why would I wait another 5 years? We could go to school together. We could drive together in Seattle.

 

So I went back to my house, and I looked it up, I looked at the program, and there were three, three day intensive in person, weekend, sort of 90 hours in person of coaching work, and then you did all the rest on evenings and weekends and virtually in groups over nine months, over nine months. And so, I looked it up, and those 3 weekends, I was actually free. Now, I don’t have a business trip, and so I signed up, and we actually went to coaching school together. And that’s what I’m talking about. In terms of putting shit out into the universe, actually telling someone, because if she hadn’t mentioned that she wanted to be a coach, and I hadn’t mentioned like, Oh, cool. I kind of want to be a coach, and I hadn’t said, oh, you should listen to this book. Literally, I don’t think I ever would have gone to coaching school. I wouldn’t have started a podcast, and I would have stayed in my corporate job saying I’ll do it someday, and scared about money and what people would think about me and what was possible, and what my husband would support or not support. S,o put it out there. It’s starting the new year dream. A little bit. Put it out there, and then the universe will conspire to make it happen. Suddenly, you’re going to see signs everywhere. You’re going to see opportunities everywhere. You’re going to see people who you’re like, oh my god, your dream is my dream, or your dream is awesome. Go. Make it happen. That’s inspiring for me. Otherwise, we walk around telling no one about our dreams, not even admitting them to ourselves out loud.

 

We have blinders on, and I feel the same way about smaller things. Like, when I wanted to go to Europe a year and a half before I actually went, I was just like, I want to go to Europe. And I had a 2 year old and an 8 year old who, by the way, I wanted to go without them. And it was a little bit crazy, but I wanted to go to Europe. So, I put it out on the universe, which in this case was Facebook, and I said, Hey guys, I want to go to Europe. I’ve been to these 3 places. I don’t drink, so don’t send me to the wine region. Where else should I go? And all these friends from high school and college and colleagues came back with countries and links and things they loved. And it was so exciting, and then you can create a trip fund.

 

So, if you’re starting Dry January or starting on 100 day no alcohol challenge, you can use the money you’re saving not drinking. I saved $550 a month not drinking wine every day. So over 3 months or over 100 days, that’s 1600 plus dollars. So, get yourself lots of daily sober treats, but you can also put some of that money in a trip fund. Think about what you could save in 6 months not drinking. That’s something you can use to get started on a dream or two instead of barely making it through the day because you’re dragging with a mild hangover and throwing away hours every night. Then I created Pinterest board of all the countries I was interested in, and I bought myself a $12 travel book, and I told people at lunch, when I was chit chatting over coffee, I said, Oh, but one thing I really want to do this year is travel to Greece. By the way, that’s also a lot more fun and interesting in terms of a conversation than talking about work or your kids or your schedule or whatever you are manifesting it.

 

You’re not dismissing it or being like, Sure, I’d like to go to Greece someday. You’re putting it front and center, and even if it’s not for a year or two years, it’s going to happen, because it’s an image in front of you in your kitchen every day, and you’re going to come down with coffee, half asleep, and you’re going to be like, oh, yeah, I want to go to Greece. And in the meantime, it’s also way more fun and energizing than coming into your kitchen and looking at your dishes and unopened mail and thinking about your to-do list. So, every morning, I would come down to the kitchen, I would get my coffee, and then I would pause, and I would see things that said, create a life that feels good on the inside, not just one that looks good on the outside.

 

I would see messages that said, you have to participate relentlessly in the manifestation of your own destiny. I would see pictures of things to do in Santorini, there was a map of Amsterdam and a picture of the canals. There was art for my future podcast.

 

Yeah. A year before I started my podcast, I went to Canva, and I had a picture of the art. And even though it sounded ridiculous that I would start a podcast, the more I saw it, the less ridiculous it felt. I was like, Oh yeah, I’m going to do that. I was getting over my fear by sort of exposure therapy, by seeing it every day. I was grounding myself and inspiring myself literally every morning when I was half awake, and then I’d go upstairs, and I’d wake up my kids, and I’d take my shower and pack the school lunches and go to work. But I was dreaming a little bit each day, and I was unconsciously moving forward. So, I want to go back to what I said earlier. If the biggest thing that influences your ability to change and improve your life is your own inner voice.

 

The second thing is the people you surround yourself with, and that is super important. You need to surround yourself with people who think like you do, with voices that are inspiring and ideas that light you up, that make you think bigger and help you dream people and messages that make you feel all excited inside. And this is really important when you’re stopping drinking. You need to find other people who see alcohol-free life as something that is empowering and fun and worthwhile and positive. That’s why people join groups like my sobriety starter kit member group to be around people who get it, who know how hard your first weekend is, and that going to work, and that going to a work happy hour and not drinking is badass. Who talk about the joy that they’re feeling in alcohol-free life and what their mornings are like without a headache and crappy sleep, who talk about why sober vacations are actually better and more fun than when they were drinking. And if you’re thinking, I don’t have anyone like that in my life, I have one friend, but I never see her. Just know that you can meet new people in groups like that, and also that those voices and that inspiration don’t even have to come from actual people. You can start with messages and voices and podcasts and books you are listening to this podcast, which I hope is inspiring some new ideas that light you up and make you think bigger and help you dream about more than the way you feel right now.

 

Aside from sobriety podcast, I also started with Jen’s book, you are a badass, there is a motivational speaker called Jim Rohn, and he said you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Those people shape who you are. They determine what conversations dominate your attention, so take control, and you can create your own bubble. If you want to try life alcohol free, find some people on the same path. Minimize the time and the energy you give to people who are giving you shit for trying to make healthy changes in your life or criticize the things that you want to do. It is a fact of life that some people hold us back and other people propel us forward. That’s just the way it is. So, you can’t hang out with super negative people and expect to have a really positive life. And the lesson here is not that you need to ditch everyone in your life, but you do actively need to construct your social environment with intention. You have to consciously be aware of which opinions, which attitudes and which life philosophies you allow and the ones you don’t allow to be part of your life. You need to build your squad and surround yourself with people you admire, and again, you will find those people in real life. I mean, I found Amy, and she was just in a workout group, and she totally inspired me.

 

But you can also put pictures of your heroes on your wall or on your vision board. I actually and again, this is totally embarrassing. I really wanted to be like Amy Porterfield. I listened to her podcast all the time, and she is completely unrelated to sobriety. She’s an entrepreneur and a podcaster and builds digital courses. And I even signed up and went to her entrepreneur experience live event in San Diego while I was still working at L’Oréal and it got me all fired up. I was like, That’s it. I’m starting my own coaching business. I’m going to start a podcast. I want to be around people who are doing things and talking about things and are excited about things. So I had a picture, actually, of Amy Porterfield in my office, and a picture of my podcast art, because I wanted to start a podcast and a quote, and it says, there are people doing what you want to do, who are less qualified than you are, simply because they believed in themselves, and that helped me overcome my fears and my resistance and my limiting beliefs and my worries about whether I was smart enough or good enough or had enough experience. And amazingly, three years later, Amy had me on her entrepreneur experience as a success story. I got to talk to her about my podcast and how I built my business and what I do, and then I got to do it again the next year, and when I went to that first conference, I was too scared to even introduce myself as a coach.

 

Even though I had my coaching certification, I was too scared to go up to the microphone and ask a question, because I felt like such an imposter. I felt like I had no credibility or nothing to do. So, the fact that in 3 short years, I was a success story. Talking to this woman who was my hero, was amazing. And I want you to do things like that. We become like the people we choose to expose ourselves to, and so you can accelerate your personal growth in whatever direction you want by spending time with other people who are already doing what you want to become.

 

I always say, when you’re looking at people and maybe they’re criticizing you, you’re spending time with people, ask yourself, Do I want what they have? What that means to me is, do I want their values, their priorities, their schedule, their life, their general happiness. And if the answer is yes, spend more time with them. Ask them to coffee, tell them you admire them. Tell them you love their energy, and if not, know that they’re probably not going to approve of what you’re doing, and that’s okay, because if they approved, that means you would be headed in their direction, and that’s not what you want. If you don’t want what they have, by definition, you should be disappointing them, and that is okay, just don’t spend a ton of time with them. And that, by the way, is hard for a people pleaser or a Gold Star Girl or a straight A student. It is hard to disappoint people, but if you are doing what other people want you to do, and you don’t share their priorities or their values, you don’t want their life. You are not headed in the right direction. If they approve of you, you are headed in their direction.

 

Okay, so lastly, after you do all this, after you think about what you want, or how you want to feel after you put up images and words to remind yourself and reinforce that this is the path you’re on, and this is good, and this is important, and most importantly, this is possible for you. I want you to look at evidence to change your story. I want you to look for evidence that the universe is sending you, signs that people are out there, that the universe is conspiring to make the things you dream about happen.

 

So, start small. Write down nice things people say about you, compliments you get, even about your smile from the woman at the grocery store, or your necklace when you’re picking up something on an errand, or if a coworker says something good about the job you did, or your energy, or your kid telling you that you’re an awesome mom, even if you’re in their third week not drinking, those are signs that you are on a good path. Write them down so you actually remember them versus forgetting them completely when the next frustration of everyday life shows up. So, I started doing this in a Google doc on my phone. When someone would tell me something positive, I would write it down because we have such negative thought loops in our heads about how we’re not measuring up, about how we’re not good enough, about how we screwed up. And that’s just not true. It isn’t nobody else sees you that way. And by the way, if there are people in your life who don’t see you that way, you need to seriously edit the amount of access and time you spend with them, so build up evidence of what you want in your life and the people who light you up and bring them more into your life.

 

I remember vividly when I was going to coaching school, I was talking to someone in my program, and she said to me, you are a unicorn, and unicorns attract other unicorns. And I know that sounds ridiculous, but it was one of the coolest things that anyone had ever said to me, and I wrote it down, because, you know what’s cool to me? What’s cool is hanging out with people who talk about unicorns. Those people are my people. That is the way I want to live. Those are the conversations I want to have. So that’s my best advice to you. As we wrap up this year and head into another think about what you want. Dream about it, and don’t shove that into a draw by two weeks from today, I am going to encourage you to make a vision board right now, as you’re starting the new year, as it’s here, take some time to take stock of where you are and what you want to bring into your life this year. What do you want to focus on and what’s important to you, what is keeping you stuck that you want to let go of? How do you want to feel? Vision boards are a powerful way to bring clarity to what you want to experience in life. It will keep you focused on who you want to be, where you want to go, how you want to feel, instead of getting busy and being dragged down by all your daily life experiences, because they will always steer you off course, you will have a consistent a powerful reminder of your ideal Life with your best self, your vision board will keep your dreams top of mind because it will retrain your brain to think about what’s possible and what’s available to you, and it will help you shut down that negative inner critic voice.

 

So, to get started. I really encourage you to get that big vision board kit I put together so you can download it and use it. It’s got 40 pages, over 100 quotes and images to inspire you to get started. And in that kit, it has step by step information on how to do it, how to get started, how to use the kit. So, to download the kit, you can go to my website. It’s hellosomedaycoaching.com/vision-board-kit.

 

And lastly, if one of your goals for this year is to finally stop living in the crappy drinking cycle. Stop telling yourself you’re going to drink less, or stop drinking and going four days or seven or 16 or 30, drinking again, etc., etc. You know what I’m saying about that Groundhog Day. I want to invite you to join my sober coaching program, The Sobriety Starter Kit. If drinking or trying not to drink is something you struggle with, and by the way, you are not alone in this. You owe it to yourself to experience the happiness, the health, the life you deserve without alcohol in your life. The end goal is not to, quote, unquote, just go through life not drinking. The end goal is to get unstuck so that you can do all the other things that are available to you in your life, the things that you say you’re going to do, but get off track and never get around to it. The goal is to be a happier and healthier person getting rid of alcohol. That’s just step one.

 

That is what is keeping you barely getting through the day. So, it’s the end of the year. It’s the beginning of next year. There literally has never been a better time to get started, don’t let yourself go through another month, or two months or six months stuck in the drinking cycle, because if you keep doing what you’ve been doing, you will end up in the exact same place you’ve been. If you’re trying to make this change and you haven’t been able to sustain it. You need more support and a step by step roadmap and a community which will help you stop drinking and build a life you’d love without alcohol. And you’ll get my daily support in the member group.

 

So, if you’re interested, I want to invite you to check out The Sobriety Starter Kit, you can go to www.sobrietystarterkit.com. Check out if it’s a good fit for you. If it is not, please put together your vision board. Please take a step forward. Please put up a quote that you can see every day for the next year to remind you of what you want in your life. And I want you to know that I am rooting for you, and I am here for you, and I am excited about what is ahead for you, because it is going to be good.