5 Ways to Evaluate How You Show Up

Click below to listen to the podcast!

Summary

• "The first person you must show up for is yourself."
• Evaluate yourself on these 5 areas: Where you are at right now, Self-Talk, Affirmations, Expressing Gratitude, Being Kind to Yourself.
• By evaluating how you are showing up for yourself, you will be more cognizant of how you treat yourself. This allows you to see the areas you can improve on, thus greatly improving how you treat yourself and show up for others.
• Showing up for others does not happen by accident. It takes practice and intentional effort, but most of all, it requires you to show up for yourself first!
• Show up for others better by actively listening, being vulnerable and expressing empathy.

Full Transcript

Welcome to Focus Forward Business Design…I am Leigh Wilson, your Certified High-Performance Coach.  We have all heard about “showing up” and it is becoming kind of a cliché phrase.  What does it exactly mean and where are we showing up, or for whom?

I like the idea of showing up as my best self…I mean it sounds like something that I would want to do.

Right?  

As I think of the phrasing of that, I see in my mind the loving, giving person that we all strive to be, presenting themselves to others.  So, if I have the visual of what that looks like, then why do so many people not show up so often?  After all, it doesn’t seem like this simple picture that I have drawn in my head should be that difficult.

I am going to break this down just a bit deeper and we are going to start with WHO we show up for and then break into what those that show up do differently.  So, let’s jump into this.  Get those journals out and let’s see if you are showing up everyday as your best self.

This seems so basic, but it goes back to the old adage that you can’t love someone else until you love yourself.  The same is true for showing up as your best self.  The first person that you must show up for is yourself.  You are an amazing individual, and you need to show yourself everyday just how incredible you are and how much you have to contribute to your own happiness, your success and the pride you have in the things that you have accomplished, and better yet, the things that you have yet to show the world. 

I want to share 5 ways for you to check in and see how you are showing up for yourself.  I challenge you to write these down and evaluate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 in each of these areas.  Be tough on yourself.  If you really did not act or behave like you would like to have, then score yourself appropriately, and ask yourself what could you have done differently.  This gives you great feedback for the following week.  This is something that you can add to your Sunday check in for the week and see how those scores change as you go through weeks where everything is easy, vs weeks where it seems like everything is a struggle.  It is funny how when things tend to go sideways, even if we were not the cause of it, how we tend to not show up as our best, even to ourselves.

1. Acknowledge where you are at…right now!  We know that to find clarity in what we want and where we are going, we must know where we are starting. Give yourself the respect to acknowledge where you are in the important areas of your life…today. These areas are ones that you will decide on based on what is most important to you. You will probably find yourself writing down things like family, relationships, career, business growth. Spiritual, education, personal growth, and contribution are categories that will likely appear in many people's lists. You may want to write out your most important areas and rate yourself in each area. None of us are equal in all categories and oftentimes find one category is very strong while another is suffering greatly. 
2.  What are you saying to yourself? Self talk is one of the strongest forces that we have and can work either positively or negatively. You have probably witnessed or even personally experienced a child that has been told over and over how dumb they are because they did not achieve the grades their parent thought they should, or maybe convincing them that they are destined to be poor because that is just the way that it always has been and so why would it be any different?  That child oftentimes grows up with these beliefs and keeps reiterating them over and over to themselves as adults until they truly believe that they are a bad person or will be poor forever, therefore why try or expect anything differently.  It obviously doesn’t have to be children. Many times, in abusive relationships the same negative energy can turn into awful self-talk. Now, it may not be that extreme, but it can be small things that you tend to tell yourself that are maybe not laced in respect.  Listen to yourself, especially when you are struggling, and pay attention to what you are saying to yourself. Would you say that to someone that you love and care for…If you wouldn’t then you should not be saying it to yourself.  Stop at that point and rephrase that negative self-talk into something that will be more positive and shows you love, and respect. How is your self-talk?  Take the time to rate yourself.
3. Affirmations. This one is related to the self-talk piece and gives you a process of really stepping it up a level. Now, before you start pushing back here, I really want you to try this for at least a week.  Define the areas that you could motivate yourself or be kinder to that amazing person that you are and come up with a couple of affirmations that you can repeat to yourself throughout the day.  Maybe it even becomes one of your meditation mantras if that is something you do to ground yourself. I know that this can be hard at first as many of us are raised to not have large egos, and at first glance, this can seem a little over the top in self love. But I am telling you that there is no over the top in self love if it is done with the intention of respecting and appreciating your mind, your body and your soul, and giving yourself credit for all the outstanding attributes that you have.
4.  Express your gratitude every day. This is so important and another one that I often find people meet with resistance.   What I find really sad though and this is true stuff…is that when I ask someone to list 3 things that they are grateful for, I am met with silence.  Recognizing the things that you are grateful for takes practice….as silly as that sounds.  Test it out. Take out your journal, or a napkin or use your bathroom mirror and lipstick…or did you know that dry erase markers work awesome on mirrors…just a little tip for fun tricks. Ok, anyway, write out 10 things you are grateful for. Then, I want you to do that everyday for a week. You will see how much easier it gets and how you start being really grateful for the smaller things.  This is a wonderful activity to do with your children as well.  What you will find is that kids have no problem listing a million things that they are grateful for.  As we get older, we tend to take things for granted or get jaded.   Renew this habit everyday and you will be amazed at how it affects your overall view of the world.
5. Be kind to you! Set time aside to be good to yourself.  That can look like time alone, a massage, reading a good book or whatever brings you peace.  Too often we get so wrapped up in getting everything done because the world is going by so quickly.  This is one of the very best ways that you can show up for you.

By evaluating how you are showing up for yourself and really being cognizant of how you treat yourself you will see a real difference in how you treat yourself.

So, what about showing up for others…what does that look like.  Now, that you are your own best advocate and are showing up as you should for yourself, you are ready to be a champion for others. Showing up as your best self for others can mean that you sacrifice something to make someone else happy.  That could be your time, energy, emotions, comfort or pleasure. 

Showing up as your best self for others can have such a positive impact on both your day and theirs.  You come across as energetic, caring, empathetic, a teacher or whatever they may need in that moment.  By showing up and engaging you promote creativity, joy and a feeling of wellbeing in those around you.

I am going to give you 2 ways to start showing up for the ones around you.

1. Be an amazing active listener. It could be listening to a coworker who just needs someone to be empathetic during a tough time.
2. Be ok with being vulnerable and showing empathy. People need to feel the trust so that they feel safe in opening up.  Being transparent is the most genuine form of trust.

Showing up for others can take on many different looks.  It can be as simple as helping care for a neighbor’s sick child when they can’t be there.

A number of years ago I had a friend who was diagnosed with cancer, and as you can imagine was terribly scared.  She lived alone and had no family nearby.  We had recently been through our own cancer journey and so it just seemed natural to step in and help her through appointments, understanding the medication after chemo and to help prepare her for what to potentially expect.  At the time I didn’t label it as showing up as my best self. Years later, looking back, that was exactly what happened.  If we show up as our best automatically then we know that we are coming from a place of intuition, generosity, confidence and a willingness to be vulnerable.

Showing up for others does not happen by accident.  It takes practice and intentional effort and as we talked about earlier it requires you to show up for yourself first…which can be the toughest part of the road.

You are an amazing individual with so much to give to others.  We are in a race that needs each other and by learning to show up for others we are all better, more compassionate and stronger than we could ever be by going at it alone.