Hey guys, it's Jenna. Thanks so much for joining me on another episode of Elevate Yourself podcast.

Jenna: So this week well, we can half or so ago I did something really crazy and that was completely out of my comfort zone. I'm usually this so small and so insignificant but it's just really provoked a lot of thought in my life so wanted to share it with you guys so I tried a sparkle full-on flat out like super sparkle nail polish and for most people who know me like I don't really usually stray from like neutrals, maybe a classic red I am not a very sparkle sparkle person and honestly for the longest time I just definitely had such a closed mind about it. And I'm just blown away about how I could be so against something and have such a shut-off mind towards something and just think that in myself, I was just not a sparkle person and then try sparkle polish and absolutely love it. And just thinking about all like the implications of did I think that like I wasn't confident enough to where this was like insecure to be so bold into like kind of fun with my nail choice was a caring too much about what other people thought about my nails. There are just so many little thoughts in there of why I would think that that was such a significant thing. It's only a two to three-week commitment. So just why I was so anti sparkle just has really been on my mind because definitely it's something that I've actually really enjoyed. And so I've also been cutting myself off from this this whole time just because I thought that I was this person that I clearly am not so it's so interesting because just such a small example like that. So basically today I felt like it was really important to come on here and talk about how getting out of your comfort zone is really essential to elevating yourself your self-care routine, but also just growing as a person and how something so small as like a nail polish change can really like identify that and also give you the confidence in your life to make those changes further with further bigger decisions. Once you take those little small steps of say having like blowing your mind by trying sparkle nail polish when you've never done it before and you think no, I'm not a sparkle person and how that can have such a big influence on your like confidence and also open-mindedness of like the person that you can maybe shift to and change and become. One of my favorite quotes is when you're green, you're growing and when you're ripe you rot so essentially to like keep yourself out of that comfort zone. The comfort zone by definition is a place where you feel comfortable and your abilities are not being tested. In other words, comfort zones are comfortable, safe ways of just existing-working setting a routine a mindset of who you think you are.

This is often like super hard to change because ego can be part of it. We identify with a certain vision of who we are, and because that's who we are and most are most comfortable identity. It can be scary. And we can have a little fear with deviating from that ideal character that we are identifying with but also there can just be random irrational fears. The interesting thing about fear is that it's actually really closely linked to the feeling of excitement as well. So if you look at anxiety or fear and excitement, they're basically the same sense sensation, but they're filtered through your unique expectations of what may or may not happen. So it's really interesting to me to look deeper into this because basically it's filtered. What makes it fear or what gives you anxiety versus excitement is whether or not you think there's going to be a positive or a negative outcome. And the funny thing about that is that the way you approach something and your attitude and your expectations, definitely do you pull that certain outcome closer to you. So if you expect something to happen, it's way more likely to happen than if you don't expect it to happen. So if you're approaching things to fear and anxiety versus excitement choosing not identify you have the choice possibly to choose those things, then you're actually filtering your decisions through or making changes that could possibly positively affect your life through a negative perspective thinking that the bad thing is what's going to happen or that this is not something that can positively affect your life in one way or another. And even if you don't think you're thinking like that, I challenge you if you're having fear or anxiety about something to think back on it and there is a negative expectation of what's going to happen if you are having that feeling and sometimes we don't even know why that's happening. And so to like look back on it and be like, what is really happening here? Is this rational or is this like irrational? When you stare at the expectation or like anxiety or fear in the face? You might find that it's a really silly thing that's holding you back from something way greater like a good change in your life. So that's like just the sparkle nail polish is really blowing my mind right now. So I really wanted to show share this with you guys because it's definitely changing the way that I'm thinking about fear and my comfort zone. Another reason why I think that this is like a really bang on topic right now is because we are being fed fear everywhere. Fear, fear, fear. It's like one fear or another. You listen to the news, it's all over the place. And some things maybe are rational and irrational and there's things that we can't change or we and those are like kind of just everywhere right now, but I think the reason why this is like really important to hit on right now is because we are also like a little bit fed up with fear, I think, so we're more likely to revert to comfort zone. It's just too much running on like adrenaline and cortisol and just like having to react to the fear all the time. But if we don't keep rewiring ourselves to react with intention towards fear, then we are going to really block ourselves off from growth because we are going to be reverting to that comfort zone. Just because we're sick of dealing with all this fear when honestly dealing with this challenging yourself to look past the things that you can change that are like silly fears putting on a freakin sparkle nail polish that's really going to getting over that little thing like small little things like that in your life are going to help you get a hold on your whole sense of empowerment with your whole life in a small really manageable way to make fear not controlling your life and holding you away from growth.

So it is so super important. To keep challenging ourselves even though we're like overloaded with fear right now to get out of our comfort zones and do the little small things that give us like a foothold on fear. Basically, something small change the way you wear your hair changed the way you like what nail polish you think you can wear or can't wear, change the way you drive to work change whatever you can small little things so that you can also just get out of your comfort zone and switch up the way you're thinking about yourself. switch up the way you're thinking about your life and make those like positive changes. rewire the way that you're looking at fear and whether it's excitement versus expectation of bad thing happening. Look at the way you're thinking about fear. Is it actually excitement or it could it be excitement about something that is really a positive change for you like say, you don't have enough time to do your makeup in the morning and you were really overwhelmed with your whole life and you're feeling rundown. So like maybe you've never had lash extensions and you're afraid of trying them because maybe it won't work out or maybe it's just too glamorous for you or something like that. You're really creating the fear that the expectation that it's just not going to be a good thing for you. Just like me with the sparkle nail polish, right? So trying something new that you think could have a positive outcome for you but you're scared. That's like the best way to start. I think there's a lot of other things you can do that are not physical changes, but generally a physical change also brings about a mental change. That is really good other physical changes that can bring around mental changes really quickly are fitness programs, diet programs. Those definitely boost your mental health and your level of confidence because you're tackling these fears, and instead you're turning these fears into excitement. So another like really good thing you can do to try and get yourself out of the rut of being in comfort zone is just doing one nice thing for someone a day actually thinking about it. This is something that I would never do. And I'm going to do it just a random act of kindness. It will really change up the way you're looking at life and make you feel better. Volunteering also can be a really good thing to do.

So with volunteering, actually to be told before I started elevate I was not in the best place in my life. Really. There was a lot of changes that were necessary in my life but I was really afraid to make them and it was really scary for me because I had just I was leaving this job that was plus six figures and such a awesome opportunity. But it just wasn't right anymore. For me. I had just finished my IP so I just was like so close to finishing my red seal for electrical. And I just decided that it was just time to make a big change. But I was also so scared about making this change. So and I just really couldn't make a commitment. I was so almost paralyzed by fear and so volunteering was such an epic thing for me. I remember just looking through the newspaper and I didn't know what I wanted to do at that point in my life. I was just really upset and really afraid. And I remember I saw this listing for they were looking for volunteers and somehow I just connected with that. It was just like an easy thing that I could do to benefit myself but I was also kind of nervous because I should be making money. I shouldn't just be spending time doing all this stuff.

So I was kind of like having that negative feedback loop of like fear of like spending this time when I should be making money when I'm trying to make this career change. And so it was kind of weird because I was getting the fear of pushback from that but I just forced myself to do it. I just knew that this was going to be something positive I could do and it was going to benefit some other people too. So I did call and I would be very diligent with this volunteer group that I did. And I really do think like that was like a move for me that did break down my fear, change. My thought patterns make me a lot more positive with the direction that I was going in, where I was just like at a place where I was paralyzed by this fear, but needed knowing I needed to grow and I needed to change but I just wasn't in a positive mindset to make those decisions of like where it needed to go. So that's like we're doing something good for like going out of your way to do something uncharacteristically good for someone else can really shake up your comfort zone and throw you into a place of positivity where you're able to make better decisions for yourself and also have the confidence to like overcome the fears that you might have in the direction that you need to grow. So, just so important to start where you can start small start where you can start with things that you can easily dispel fear so volunteering that's why it's such so freaking good like rate your mind it will even if you still have reasons why you shouldn't do it like for me, I was like I'm afraid that I need to make money so I can't be using this time to volunteer. It's an easy way for you to shut down that fear because it's like volunteering, right? How can volunteering go bad? So even though you're having that negative response, that fear response, instead of that excitement response to doing it. It's a lot easier to talk yourself into doing something like that because it is good. For someone else, because it's like it's a really freaking good thing to do. So it's a lot easier to start with those little things that are either like so insignificant or so clearly, right? That there's no way to go wrong. And by doing those things, even though like in pushing past the resistance that you're getting from a negativity/fear based expectation of a result or sometimes irrational expectation of a result pushing past through that is going to allow you enough of an experience of conquering that fear to go through and have the confidence and the excitement to work through the other issues where you need to shake things up in your life for growth. So, guys, this is just such a thank you sparkle nail polish because I absolutely would have never thought about the way this all kind of connects. And in my own life. I definitely there's a lot of big changes that are going to be happening with Elevate we have professional product lines coming out. We have all this continuous stuff happening from like all the COVID II stuff happening in the studio. Like things are generally going really good. But we're also just morphing into so many different things for like professional training programs.

We're trying to bring those professional training programs online. So there's just so much growth that sometimes like it does feel good for a second to just, you know, hunker down and be like I'm fully booked. This is good. This is comfortable for me. And because there's a lot of like adverse things. Maybe I don't want to step out as much as I would or maybe I'm not going to be attacking these things that we're doing as vigorously as I could be.

Because I'm just like stuck in those old thought patterns that are maybe nagging fears instead of excitements so. Yeah, just sometimes it just takes a sparkle nail polish to send you off in the right direction. Find out what your sparkle nail polishes. If you need help figuring that out. DM me I'd love to talk that lake with you about that could be taking a course it could be it could be a million different things. So yeah, find your sparkle nail polish. Start with something small. Then keep that momentum going. Make one change that small, make another bigger change. Keep on making those bigger changes until they feel comfortable for you. And you will eventually feel confident in the direction that you're going and you will gain momentum so that this becomes easier the more you do it, the easier it will be. The less fear you will have the more excitement you'll have. The more positivity and the more positive things will happen in your life. And yeah, try out a sparkling nail polish hope you guys have enjoyed this episode. I definitely enjoyed talking through it with you guys, and we'll see you next week.