Words That Shape Me: You Are A BadAss
Welcome to the Words That Shape Me series! In this series I’ll be posting my thoughts and what I’ve learned about each book. The books I review will be ones that have had a huge impact on my life and books that I believe can change your life as well.
I can’t say enough about the book You Are A Badass by Jen Sincero! I downloaded this book from audible about a year ago. I’ve listened to it twice, once when I first got it and again here recently, which I hardly ever do. This book was the right mix of tough love and positive encouragement. I found many nuggets of wisdom in each chapter. Today I’m sharing the three that impacted me the most.
I do want to say before we get started that these are my takeaways from the book. Meaning that you may have a completely different takeaway than me on the same section. That is totally okay! I say this to say that if you really want to see how this book can change your life, don’t just take my word for it. Read or listen to this book to develop your own opinions and takeaways. I’d love to know your perspective on You Are A Badass as well! Okay let’s dive in!
“It’s not your fault that you are fucked up, it’s your fault if you stay fucked up.”
What I got from this is that things happen that are out of our control sometimes, whether it’s the way we were raised or a traumatic event that happened, etc.. Then there is the added bonus of the statements we hear over our lifetime that we are told is true. These situations and statements influence our life whether we realize it or not. The key is to understand how it’s affecting you and find ways to train your mind to get to a point where it no longer affects your life and the habits you create. Take control of your life to change your life!
This chapter was full of knowledge about the conscious and subconscious mind. The gist of these two is that the subconscious mind is the core of why we do what we do and it’s not always easy for us to see. This part of our brain believes everything it is told, whether it’s true or not. It’s where our upbringing from our parents and culture comes into play. However, the conscious mind is what we are aware of and how we get our information. It is called the prefrontal cortex and doesn’t form until puberty. In relation to weight loss an example would be knowing that emotional eating isn’t going to help you in your quest to healthy living (conscious mind). To truly fix this issue for good you need to get to the core reason why you have developed this habit which is found in the subconscious mind.
Key Takeaway: If you are unhappy with your life, and you want to change that, spend some time reflecting on why you are unhappy. Then take action to change what you need to change to live a better life.
“The ones who kick ass are the ones who can see themselves kicking ass.”
Visualization is the key to living a better life! Who knew it could be that simple? Don’t just think of what you truly want and call it a day. That can easily turn to wishful thinking and that won’t get you any closer to getting what you want. To get what you want not only do you have to think of what you want, but you to believe with every fiber of your being that you will accomplish this goal. You also must visualize you already have it. What does it take to get there? How do you feel having met your goal? These are examples of questions to ask yourself to get a clear vision of what you want and how to get it.
For example, let’s say you want to start a blog. It’s not just enough to say “I want to start a blog this year” You need to visualize yourself publishing your blog then take action. What do you blog about? How many visitors do you have? What does your design look like? Are you making money from your blog or is it a hobby?
Believe that you can do it, get as descriptive as possible, then create an action plan to get it done.
Takeaway: The first step to reaching a goal is to believe that you can reach it then see yourself reaching it.
“We get so used to, and so identify with, our broken records that we don’t even notice they exist or that they’re not even real.”
How many bad things do you say about yourself each day? Do you ever catch them, or do they slip right out and you forget about them? Y’all we’ve got to stop all this negative self-talk. It is not doing us any good. Perhaps you are like me and never really realized exactly how cruel you are to yourself or how many lies you tell yourself daily. The immediate effects of our negative statements may not always be visible, but it does affect us long term. If we are not careful, will turn into broken records that we start to become unaware of.
Do you already have a broken record of lies you tell yourself every day? The good news is that this doesn’t have to become a permanent part of your story. Just like Jen Sincero says in the book, you can get rid of this story and write a new story. A better story full of life giving truth about who you are and what you can do.
Takeaway: Become aware of your broken record, forgive yourself for believing the lies, then start filling your mind with beautiful truths.
This was just a small sample of everything I learned in this amazing book. What I loved the most is that at the end of each chapter of You Are A Badass she emphasized the importance of loving yourself. There are many areas of my life that this book has shown me I need to work on. Most importantly is feeding my mind positive thoughts. Which as you will find out later this week goes hand in hand with our first challenge here on Budding Joy.
Have you read You Are A Badass? Let’s discuss it further in the comments! What was your biggest takeaway?
