5 Ways To Be Extraordinary

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

Hello, my beautiful friends. I just learned a powerful lesson in the last five minutes. When things aren't working, you need to update the app, and I was thinking about how that's so applicable, not only to our iPhones and our computers, but to our lives. I've been sitting here trying to record this episode and it kept failing over and over, and I kept trying the same process. Then finally I thought, "Huh, why not go and update the app and see if that works?" And voila. So far it's a success. We all have this internal operating system, and if we keep failing and it's not working, maybe we just need to upgrade and update the operating system. That's what self-image work is all about, and doors to the membership are closing in just a few days. If you are ready to upgrade your operating system, if you are ready to completely transform how you see yourself, and therefore the results that you create in your life, if you are ready to create your after story, if you are ready to be the extraordinary woman that you are, come and join us.

Go to SchoolOfSelfImage.com/join and don't be surprised if you don't start to notice an update of your operating system within the first 24 hours of joining. I've had several women who just joined reach out to me on Instagram and say, "I'm blown away. I'm already seeing results. I'm already feeling a difference." And that's what happens when you begin to put different inputs into your brain as to what's possible. Come and join us, SchoolOfSelfImage.com/join. I'm excited today because I am recording this episode from my new city, Charlotte, North Carolina. We arrived a few days ago and I cannot tell you all how happy I was waking up this morning. 

It's about 64 degrees outside and the fresh air, the humidity, the smells, the sounds, it's what I grew up with that I took for granted and that I didn't realize was missing from my life.

Different areas of the country, different areas of the world, all have their own style. There is definitely a style to the South in this area that I forgot how much I appreciate, I forgot how much I enjoyed it. I've just been walking around all day with the biggest grin on my face, just so happy and excited. And I told my family today because my parents are here visiting, I said, "I never want to take this for granted again. I want to remember this feeling of just enjoying the fresh air, of just enjoying the humidity, just enjoying the style of the South." We celebrated my birthday last night and I had some friends who live here who met us at this cute restaurant called Peppervine. Anybody who's in Charlotte should go check it out. And I was just sitting there so in love and so happy and thinking about the last several years and how extraordinary they have been and how they have been extraordinary because I decided to tap into my own extraordinary, because at the end of the day, we're all just ordinary people who choose to be extraordinary or we choose not.

I wanted to talk about in this episode how to be extraordinary. Everything that I'm going to be sharing is based on the definition of extraordinary, extra ordinary. I mean, really think about that. It's just ordinary with some extra. The definition of extraordinary is very unusual or remarkable or going beyond what is usual, regular or customary. Let's think about that in terms of our beingness, because what I know to be true is that we can get into ruts, we can get into this way of being and living where you're waking up and you are thinking the same thoughts. You're hanging out with the same people, you're believing the same things, you're wearing the same things, you're driving the same way to work. You are having the same kinds of conversations, you're eating the same things, you're moving in the same ways or not moving in the same ways, and you just keep creating the same results and life begins to feel very ordinary.

And what I know to be true is that to be extraordinary, it's about constantly pushing the limit of your self-image and therefore pushing the limit of what's possible for you. I even think about my life right now. It's extraordinary. It's remarkable. It blows me away that I've created this life. And I also know if I just kept this life as it is right now, it would begin to look and feel ordinary not only to myself, but to you. Think about it. Let's pretend five years from now I am recording the same kind of podcast. I still have the same kind of program that hasn't changed in five years. I'm dressing the same, I'm doing the same things. I'm basically the same person five years from now as I am today. That would not be inspiring. Probably a lot of you all would be like, "Tonya, why haven't you grown? Why haven't you evolved?"

And this is what happens to a lot of us. We get to a place where like, "Oh, I'm good. I'm just going to settle in right here." And listen, there is nothing wrong with that if that's what you're choosing on purpose. But a lot of people aren't choosing it on purpose and they're frustrated that their life doesn't have that energy, doesn't have that excitement. The only thing that needs to happen is that you need to choose to be extraordinary. And I'm going to share with you how to do that. 

Are you ready? Let's talk about five ways that you can be extraordinary. Number one, choose extraordinary goals. Now, what makes a goal extraordinary? Well, if you happen to be within the School of Self-Image, in the self-image method, which is the foundational program that every member goes through, I have a whole section in that workbook that has a filter that you run your goal through to see if it's extraordinary.

Use those questions and see if you get the green light on your goal. But for the purpose of this podcast, I just want to talk about the definition of extraordinary. It's something that is out of the ordinary, unusual and remarkable. Check in with yourself and ask yourself, "Are my goals remarkable? Are they out of the ordinary? Are they unusual?" Because what often happens is we are going after goals that we think we should go after. For example, I can't tell you how many women I've worked with who went after the goal of becoming a doctor or an attorney because that's what their parents pressured them to do, and they jumped through the hoops. They went to school, got an amazing education, graduated, became a doctor or an attorney. These are just examples. Only to feel unfulfilled. They were pursuing someone else's dream, not figuring out what they truly wanted.

It's a goal that was ordinary to their extraordinary soul. Now, for some people, becoming a doctor and attorney is their path. It's their truth. It's extraordinary for them, but for others it's not. And that's why we have to really stop and check in with ourselves with the goals that we're creating. Another thing that I've seen with goals, and I used to do this one all of the time, is I would go after the same ordinary goals all of the time. Most notably weight loss. Every year, "I'm going to lose this weight, I'm going to lose this weight." And I was so uninspired, I didn't trust myself with it. It wasn't a goal that was unusual for me. It wasn't out of the ordinary. It was very predictable every year that this was going to be my goal. I had to come up with new goals that felt aligned with the future that I wanted to create.

Now, granted, I did want to lose the weight, but I realize now there were goals that I could pursue that would demand a more excellent version of me that would produce a weight loss result without me focusing on the weight all day, every day, year after year after year. My goals demanded that I show up in a different way, that I took care of myself in a certain way, that I didn't keep disappointing myself, but they weren't weight loss goals. I remember asking myself, if I were not trying to lose weight, what would I be doing? What would I be trying? The answers that came were things like learning new languages, traveling, adventure. I started to place my attention and focus on those things, and then the weight loss was a result. I realized my future self wasn't trying to lose weight.

She was already there. How could I embody her now? That's a whole different podcast topic, but what I want to say to those of you who are on a weight loss journey, you want to lose weight, I don't want you to let go of that. I think especially if you've been struggling with weight for a long time, that this is something that you are going to have to face to get to the next level. However, question what the goal can be that will require that version of you. Let's decide that we're going to choose extraordinary goals. 

Goals that demand a new version of us, goals that excite us and scare us all at the same time, goals that are remarkable and out of the ordinary. Number two, if you want to be extraordinary, you must, you must think in extraordinary ways. Now, let's break this one down.

If you are thinking the same thoughts day after day, you're going to feel the same ways, you're going to do the same things and you're going to create the same results. One of the reasons why I love extraordinary goals so much is that all of your ordinary thoughts come bubbling to the surface. You're too old. It's going to be too hard. You're never going to be able to do that. You're not good enough. All of the stuff that's underneath running your life all of the time anyway, but especially when you set extraordinary goals, that stuff's going to come up. And I tell my clients, I'm like, "That's a beautiful thing because those are the exact thoughts that you're going to have to transform." You are going to have to think beyond them in a much bigger way. One of the things that I've been focusing on doing is picking crazy thoughts that I want to believe and just believing in them, just pretending that I believe them.

And of course my brain's like, "That's dumb. You don't know that. You've never been able to do that before." My brain does that. I'm like, listen, we're just going to pretend just like I am an actress and someone handed me a script. I'm just going to try this belief on and play around with it. And it's been really fun to just play around with crazy beliefs. For example, one of the beliefs that I've been practicing is that my life is just getting easier and easier every single day. Now, when I start hitting hiccups, for example, I just found out that my furniture is not going to arrive for another two to three weeks after they told me it would only take them a week.

My brain wants to struggle with this thought. My brain's like, "No, your life is not getting easier. Look at this situation. Where are you going to live? You have no furniture." And I realize I just get to choose to believe that if I want. I mean, my furniture not arriving, doesn't have to translate into my life is hard and life is getting harder. I could just choose to believe that it's easy. What if life is just a grand adventure? Now listen, I know y'all that there are hard moments, but if all of the thoughts that I could think, why would I choose to think that one? I've just been playing around with these thoughts like money is easy, money is fun. I'm the most lovable person ever. Life is getting easier and easier, and my life gets better and better every single day.

There's nothing that I can't do. I just go on these rampages of amazing, extraordinary thoughts and allow myself for a moment just to feel them. What if they were true? The more I feel in this more expansive and abundant way, I start to see evidence for these crazy thoughts that were available to me all along. And that's what I've noticed about extraordinary people. People who are being extraordinary, they think beyond their current reality. Because if you look around and you base your level of thinking on what is you just keep recreating what is.

We can think beyond it and create a whole new world that eventually we will manifest into reality because that is how it works. Number two, thinking in extraordinary ways. 

Number three way of being extraordinary is you must be willing to feel extraordinary emotions. Now, hear me out here. A lot of people are afraid to feel negative emotion and therefore they don't allow themselves to feel positive emotion because your degree to feel a negative emotion will be your opposite degree of feeling the positive one. Did I say that right? I want to say that again. Your willingness to feel a negative emotion will be the degree to which you allow yourself to feel a positive one. What ends up happening is a lot of people just want to hang out in neutral. They want to feel too bad or too good. They just want to hang out and coast in neutral land.

But the problem with that is extraordinary doesn't hang out there. In order to have extraordinary experiences, in order to create extraordinary things, you must, you must be willing to potentially experience very negative emotion. I think about the risk I take, and that's the other one, be willing to take extraordinary risk. And when I think about the last two years, I've taken a lot of big risk and I have been able to experience the extraordinary result of that. But in terms of feeling like every time I take a huge risk, I have this extraordinary feeling of fear and anxiety and worry. And this is very normal to our very human brains. The bigger the risk, the more freaked out your brain is going to be, the bigger the potential threat, and yet also the bigger the potential reward. What this means is that you must learn how to feel extraordinary emotions.

I think about love. A lot of people are so afraid of having their hearts broken, which is a terrible, terrible feeling. They don't go out on dates, they don't put themselves out there, but the consequences, they don't get to experience extraordinary love, extraordinary connection because they are unwilling to feel the extraordinary potential pain and loss. To be extraordinary means to increase your capacity to feel extraordinary things. The fourth way to be extraordinary is to have extraordinary style. Y'all knew I was going to talk about style, but hear me out. Style isn't just about what you wear. Style is how you communicate, how you treat other people, how you express what is on the inside to the outside. When it comes to our style, we can get into ruts, carrying ourselves in the same ways, communicating in the same ways, wearing the same things, and it just keeps reinforcing the same self-image.

And your self-image is what's creating your life. If you want to be extraordinary, you must continuously expand your self-image. And one of the ways to do that is to constantly expand your style, showing up in bigger and bolder ways. I've noticed that as I evolve, so does my style. If I ever find myself choosing the same things over and over year after year, I'm asking myself, where is the growth? Why am I still wearing the same kinds of clothes I've been wearing for years? I want to constantly push my style edges to reflect back to me the next version that I need to become to reach my extraordinary goals. Extraordinary style is not something to underestimate. It has such a huge impact on our lives. And remember, extraordinary just means out of the ordinary. It means remarkable. It means unusual to you.

Are you dressing and showing up in a way that is remarkable to you? Meaning do you find yourself worthy to be remarked upon, worthy of attention? Are you showing up in ways that is out of your ordinary, that you are constantly pushing your own edges of your expression? That's number four. Number five, 

I've bunched a couple of things together, and it's one of the core pillars of the School of Self-Image and what we focus upon to transform a woman's self-image. And that is extraordinary surroundings. The places you go and the people you hang out with are reflecting your self-image back to you. And one of the things that I know has helped me to become extraordinary is placing myself in extraordinary environments. Extraordinary for me, meaning environments that are outside of my ordinary. I'm constantly pushing the edges of the rooms that I go into and the people that are in those rooms.

It's this constant expansion of putting myself an unusual and remarkable and out of the ordinary environments that hold a different energy, that hold different possibilities that aren't maybe hanging out in my current environments. And that also hold new thoughts, new perceptions, new beliefs. And a big part of your surroundings are the people. When you start placing yourself in extraordinary surroundings, what you most likely are going to be doing is placing yourself around extraordinary people. And those people are going to remind you of the extraordinary within you because that's what extraordinary people do. They're not jealous, they're not competitive. They truly want what is the best for you, for them, and for the whole. And it's like we all rise together. It's very unusual to be around those kinds of people, people who are supportive and celebratory of each other and abundant. They're not full of scarcity thinking, "Oh my God, if you succeed, then I'm going to fail and so I need to hold you back."

No, that's actually very ordinary. That's very common. But to be around extraordinary people who think in such big expansive ways and who know the truth of the universe, that there is more than enough, that we are all enough. Those kinds of people, those kinds of environments will change you in the most extraordinary ways. And I'm telling you all, that's the kind of environment that you get access to when you join the School of Self-Image membership. We are extraordinary women thinking in extraordinary ways, having an extraordinary goal, feeling extraordinary emotions, showing up an extraordinary style and surrounding ourselves with extraordinary people. If you want to be extraordinary, focus on those five elements, and I promise you, you will change in the most extraordinary ways. You will not recognize yourself a year from now.

And if you want my support and the support of the most incredible community of women, come and join us within the School of Self-Image membership. The doors are closing in just a few days. I would love to see you inside. I love you all, and I will see you on next week's episode. Cheers.

Hey, have you grabbed your free copy of the School of Self-Image Manifesto? If not, what in the world? Head over to 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.