The Places You Go

Where did you go this week? Now, I’m not trying to be nosey, but I am curious. And here’s why; the places you go affect your self-image. And that is what we’re talking about in this episode, so let’s dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here’s your hostess, master life coach Tonya Leigh.

What is happening, my friends? How is your day? How are you feeling? Are you excited about life? Are you proud of yourself for this year? Are you looking forward to next year? If your answer to any of those were negative, what I want to offer you is this; you get to change that story right now. And I highly suggest you do because the story you tell about your life is creating your life.

I’m very mindful of the story that I tell about my life and I’m becoming more and more mindful. And as a result, I’m getting better and better results in my life. So, I just wanted to offer that to you to kick off this episode.

I also realized that I haven’t asked, in a very long time, for you to write a review on iTunes, if you listen to this podcast and you enjoy it. I just – I think it was last week – went and read all of the reviews that I haven’t really paid attention to for the last few months. And I just cannot thank you all enough.

I know your time is so valuable. So, to take time out of your day to go on an app and write a review about how this podcast has impacted your life, it just means the world to me. So, thank you. And I’d appreciate it if you would leave one if you haven’t done so yet.

So, today I want to talk with you about the places you go, and specifically, how those places impact your self-image. I was inspired to do this podcast because I am in Aspen, Colorado right now. I’ve been coming here for – I think we decided – 18 years. It’s been a long time I’ve been coming here. And how being in this environment year after year has shaped me.

And I shared on Instagram, I took a picture of me and my daughter and shared it and I said, “You know what? I’m thinking about talking about how Aspen has changed my self-image.” But it’s not just Aspen. It’s the places that I have been, the environments that I’ve put myself into that have shaped me.

Within the School of Self-Image, we focus on three pillars that transform a woman’s self-image. First and foremost, mindset. It really all comes back to your mind and how you think. And the other two pillars affect our mindset, which is our surroundings and our style; how we dress, how we carry ourselves, how we communicate, how we hold ourselves, our posture.

All of these things give feedback to our brain to form our self-image. So, last night, I was walking with my daughter down the street in Aspen. It was beautiful. I wish you could have been there. It was snowing. And the weather was cold, but we were bundled up, so it was just very cozy. We were walking to dinner.

And I walked by the Louis Vuitton store in Aspen, and I had this flashback of the very first time I came here and how I was so intimidated by a store. It’s crazy for me to think about that now, but I was. I was so intimidated because I didn’t see myself, my self-image did not accommodate designer stores.

I also remember being here and just feeling so insecure, feeling as if I didn’t belong. I felt like a fraud. I felt like I was going to be found out and kicked out of the cool kids’ club.

So, my self-image at that time was, “You’re not good enough. You don’t belong here. You don’t have enough money. You’re just pretending.” All negative. And yet, I wanted to be the kind of woman who comes to Aspen and it’s just what she does. It’s normal. She comes here. She enjoys herself. She feels at home here. And she feels like she belongs.

So, when I think back to the older version of me, the one who didn’t feel at home in Aspen, that version had two options. She could either, A, stop coming, go back to what was comfortable, go back to the familiar and deny herself of the extraordinary experience of being in Aspen. It’s one of my favorite places, by the way.

Or she could decide to evolve herself, evolve her self-image to be the woman that I just described earlier, who’s at home here, who enjoys it, it’s just no big deal.

And so, year after year, I have been coming to Aspen. It has been the place that I go to help me see myself in a different way. Every time I would come, all of those limiting beliefs would pop up and I would work through them. And over time, I’ve just become a woman who is at home in Aspen.

And even more proudly, I can say, “I’ve become a woman who is at home in the world.” Why? Because I’m at home with myself. I’ve evolved my self-image to accommodate being in many places and feeling completely at home.

Now, I walk in that Louis Vuitton store, and I feel like I belong there. I feel like they should be happy to have me in there because, number one, I’m a good time. Number two, I’m always respectful. And number three, I really appreciate designer things.

But there was a time where I didn’t feel at home in a place like a Louis Vuitton or Chanel or any kind of haute couture designer store. But here’s the point. By putting myself in those places again and again and again and working on my mindset, finally those places have helped me reshape my self-image.

So, I want you to think about the places you go. In fact, think about this week. What environments are you putting yourself in? I want you to think about where you go to dinner. I want you to think about the grocery store you go to. I want you to think about where you go to get gas. Maybe where you go to the gym. Maybe the friends’ homes that you go to. And what do those places reconfirm about yourself? What beliefs do they feed?

So, let’s take my Aspen example. I wanted to believe about myself that I belonged, that I was worthy, that I was good enough. And so, by number one not giving up on coming to Aspen because it was so uncomfortable, but coming here and letting this place, over time, help me believe that about myself was one of the ways that I transformed my self-belief.

But then, there have been times in my life where I went to places that kept reconfirming an old story that wasn’t serving me. A great example was Walmart. Now, I’m not going to say bad things about Walmart because I actually used to work at Walmart. I’m very grateful for Walmart. But when I think about why I was going to Walmart, it was because I had a lot of money scarcity. And it had been drilled into my head that I could save a lot of money by going to Walmart.

And that’s really important. You have to look at your why. There are some of you that go to Walmart, and you love your reason for going to Walmart. It’s driven out of excitement. Maybe you love Walmart. It’s okay. I didn’t love Walmart, although I am grateful for Walmart.

But every time I went into Walmart, that was the place that I would go, it would reconfirm, “You’re broke. You’re not good enough,” all the things that I didn’t want to believe about myself.

When I thought about the version of me that I wanted to be, she shopped at local stores. She was very mindful and intentional with how she spent her money. She focused on quality, not quantity. She would go grocery shopping at Whole Foods.

And so, what I did is I started to put myself in those places. Even just to walk in, even just to walk into a Whole Foods and maybe grab a coffee or pick up a couple of things. And by doing that, over time, it’s really the only place that I shop now. That’s not true. I like to go to Sprouts Natural Grocers.

There are some places where I can go and get a better price on something, and I like doing that. It’s fueled out of abundance, not scarcity, believe it or not, because it’s not the money you’re spending. It’s why you’re spending it. It’s the energy driving that.

And so, for me to know that I can get oat milk at Sprouts for $2 cheaper feels fun, it feels exciting. It feels abundant to me. But I don’t go to Walmart anymore. I can’t tell you the last time I went to Walmart because I didn’t like the story that Walmart was feeding my brain.

Now, I’m in a place now in my self-image where I could go to Walmart and be fine. But I just don’t want to go to Walmart. It’s not an environment that feels expansive and abundant to me. And again, this is personal for all of us. I want you to think about that. Where are the places that feel abundant and expansive and exciting and joyful for you, and are you making an effort to put yourself in those environments?

I remember when I first started my journey into personal development, elevating my self-image. I would go to New York, and I couldn’t afford to stay at the St Regis or the Plaza, or all of the swanky hotels. But what I could do is put myself in the lobby. Because believe it or not, they don’t charge you to sit in the lobby. It’s free.

And so, I would put myself in those places to feel the energy, to begin to think about different possibilities, to begin to see myself in a different way. I remember sitting there and asking myself, who would I need to become for this just to be what I do? For this to be not a big deal? Because at the time, it was a huge deal.

I felt so out of place and so excited at the same time. But now, I can go to these places, and I can afford to stay in their hotels for a night or a week. And it’s because I did this work. I put myself in the energy of those places. And whenever the limiting thoughts would come up, I was like, “That’s exactly what I have to work through. These places are being my greatest teacher. They’re showing me exactly what I need to overcome to make these just a part of my norm, just what I do.”

The same thing happened to me the first time I went to Monaco. I mean, that’s like Aspen on steroids. It’s like, yachts everywhere, just over-the-top opulence, crazy sports cars that cost God knows what just everywhere, the women all decked out in designer. And I just remember, again, just like in Aspen, I felt so out of place.

And I had the desire to feel at home in Monaco, so I put myself there year after year after year. And all the while, I was elevating my self-image. I started to envision myself there and feeling excited about being there instead of insecure. I began to work on my mindset of that just being a place that I go that’s, again, no big deal, but also, reconfirmed all the things that I wanted to believe about myself, how I wanted to see myself.

I wanted to see myself in luxurious places and still being the girl from the south. I know some of you will know what I’m talking about. I never wanted to be snooty or arrogant like, “Oh I’m so good because I’m in Monaco,” or, “I’m in Aspen…”

No, I still wanted to keep the essence of my truest self and feel at home in all of those places. I didn’t want to go there and feel insecure. Equally, I didn’t want to go there and feel like I was better than anyone, because I’m not. We’re all equal. We’re all equally worthy. We are all good enough.

And that was the energy in which I wanted to feel in those places. And so, by going there year after year, now I can go to Monaco and just enjoy it, feel at home there. I don’t compare myself. I just enjoy being me in Monaco. It was a place that I went that changed me in a beautiful way.

Also, networking events. When I thought about the woman I wanted to be and I looked at who was around her, it was very different from who was around me at the time. And so, I began to plug myself into these networks, these communities of very successful people doing interesting things, giving back.

It’s almost like – the only way I could describe the energy of the people that I’ve had such an honor of getting to know, it’s like they live in a different realm, a higher energetic frequency realm.

And so, I put myself in those places. And as a result, just being around those different people, I started to think new thoughts. I started to see myself differently. I started to evolve my self-image.

Here’s the thing, y’all. If you want new results, you have to start doing new things. And I think you should start going to new places. Every year around this time, in anticipation for the new year, I start to think about my goals for the new year. What do I want to accomplish in 2022?

And then, I don’t just stop there. this is why we often don’t create what we want to create, because we just focus on the outcome and what actions we think we need to take. But then, I like to ask myself, “Who do I need to become in order to create that?”

Like, how is that version of me different than the version of me today? And where is that version of me hanging out? Where does she go that I’m not currently going, I’m not hanging out in those places? And then, I put myself in these places. It might be a new store. It might be around a new community. It might be going to a new destination. It might be going to a museum, or it may be going to an exercise class.

But where does she go that I’m not currently going? Because what I know is that by putting myself in those places, it will evolve me to be the woman who can go out and create those results. So, I want you to ask yourself that. When you visualize the woman you want to be and really think about her, how is she showing up? How does she carry herself? What is she believing? And then, where is she hanging out?

Where are the places that she goes? And then, I want you to make an intentional effort to put yourself in those places as often as possible. Because I promise you, those places will change you. Now, it may happen, as it did for me in many of the places that I went; it’s going to bring up a lot of limiting beliefs.

But that is not a sign for you not to go. That is not telling you that you should stay where you are. That is your teacher. Whatever limiting beliefs come up for you, that place has just handed you the best gift it could give you because that’s exactly what you need to work through to evolve your self-image, to be a woman who’s in that space and that surrounding and feeling completely at home.

So, ask yourself this, “Where are the places I intend to go in 2022?” And I would love for you to share them with me. You can go over to Instagram, find me, @tonyaleigh and message me, or find the post where I’m talking about this, and let me know, where are the places that you’re going to go in 2022, with the intention of evolving your self-image?

Have a beautiful week, everyone. And I can’t wait to see you in next week’s episode.

Hey, have you grabbed your free copy of the School of Self-Image Manifesto? If not, what in the world? Head over to http://www.schoolofselfimage.com/manifesto and get a copy that teaches you how to think and show up in the areas of mindset, style, and surroundings so that you can transform your self-image.