5 Ways to Vote for Yourself

Today I have a very interesting question to pose to you. What if you brought the same passion, conviction and unwavering belief that you often see in political campaigns to your own dreams and aspirations? That's what we're talking about today. We're going to explore five powerful ways to become your own champion, to vote for yourself with the same enthusiasm that you'd vote for any candidate who promised to change your world. 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.

Hello my friends. How are you doing? I'm doing great. I just came back from Europe. I was in London for the SOSI Tour, which was so much fun. If I saw you in London, it was such a pleasure. It's always fun to hang out with the SOSI community in person and to share stories and just to see you all in person sharing your before and afters. Just so much fun. And now I'm heading to New York this weekend for our final stop of the SOSI Tour. This is going to be our biggest one and I'm excited to sort of wrap up the year with this community and to set big intentions for next year. I'm really excited about 2025.

Now, today, I think we should talk about the elephant in the room. I don't care where you live in the world. You probably know that the US election is right around the corner. In fact, by the time this podcast drops, I think we'll just be a few days away from electing our next president. Now, this is not a political podcast. One of the things that SOSI members from all affiliations, all walks of life, all sides often say to me is that one of the things that I appreciate about the container that you've created is that we can coexist.We don't talk about politics. It's not the place.

But I was inspired to do this episode after a very fascinating concept that came to me when I was talking with a friend of mine. So let me just share what happened. We were in a group, and of course these days, politics usually comes up. Someone had made a comment about her candidate that she is supporting. She looked at them and she was like, "You know that's not true." And this person was like, "It is true. I can prove it to you." And so he whips out receipts. He has several sources that show that what she is saying is not true. And I watched her, and she refused to believe it. She started telling him, "That's not true. They got their facts wrong. That never happened." And it was so fascinating to sit there and witness the cognitive bias on full display.

And so I was thinking about it as it relates to her because the week prior to that, her and I were having a conversation about her business and I was trying to share things with her that were in support of her growth, supportive of her success, supportive of where she's going because right now she's having a very difficult time in her business. But everything I was saying was fighting for her possibilities and she just refused to believe it. She just had all of these deep, deep devotion to her own lack of success. And in that moment, all I could think about was, "Wow, if she would just campaign for herself like she's campaigning for her candidate, what a different world she would create for herself."

And I see it all of the time. I see people spending time on social media fighting with each other, fighting for their convictions of another person, fighting for their candidate, and not that there's anything wrong with that. I know that we have political activists. I completely support that. And my question to you is, do you campaign for yourself in such a way? Are you that convicted, are you that passionate about your own vision, about where you're going, about your own success, that you will stand in front of a group of people and argue to the death that you are a winner, that you are the champion of your own dreams? That is what I'm asking you today. Just think about that.

And one of the things that I know to be true is that it's often easier to campaign for someone else, and the reason being is that if they lose, it's not you. But yet you have all of this energy. We all want to champion for something. We all want to find our purpose, our passion, but I'm just inviting all of us to consider, why not let that be you and your life? Why not let it be your vision? And so today I want to give you five ways that you can not only champion for yourself, but vote for yourself in your life. Are y'all ready for this? Okay, let's go.

Number one, in order to vote for yourself, you need to know what you are voting for. Of course there's you, but there's also something bigger than you. And that thing is your vision. If you look at any candidate of any election, one of the things that they all possess is they have a vision. They have an idea of what they want the world to look like. And this is one of the things that I find a lot of women and men struggle with is that they don't have a vision of how they want their life to look like, how they want it to feel, what kind of world that they want to live in. And so they don't have anything to really rally for, to cheer for, to work towards. And then they wonder, "Why am I so frustrated? Why do I feel stuck? Why do I feel like I'm not going anywhere?" So the first thing you need to ask is, "Do I have a vision for my life? Do I have a vision for myself?"

So I want to give you some questions to ponder, and I really recommend that you get a journal out and just allow yourself to dream. Just allow yourself to write down whatever crazy thing may come to mind because those crazy things, I promise you, can turn into reality. One thing you can think about is your life as a magazine. And I want you to think about it being five years from now and you go to the grocery store and there you are on the cover of a magazine and there is a big headline. What headline would you like to read that would make you super proud?

When I think about the headline I would love to read five years from now, it would be something like Meet the Woman Behind 10,000 After Stories, because that's what I'm passionate about. I love helping women create their after stories, taking them from their before to their after, and that's what we do within SOSI. So think about you. What would you love to read? Maybe it's Weekend Musician Books First International Tour or Grandmother Gets College Degree Proving It's Never Too Late. What would you love to read about yourself as a headline five years from now?

Another way I like to approach getting your vision juices going, I guess you could call it, is to think about the no limit question. If you had all the money, time, and resources you need, what would you do? If you knew you couldn't fail, what would you do? If no one would judge you, what would you do? What comes up for you?

Another way you can think about your vision is thinking about your childhood dreams. What did you want to be before others influenced you? Which of those dreams still makes your heart beat faster today? And what elements of those dreams could be re-imagined for the person you are today?

I also love to think about our vision in terms of energy and just pay attention to what makes you lose track of time. What topics make you talk passionately? What work doesn't feel like work? Because these are clues to your best life. These are clues to the vision that I want you to be championing for.

And then finally, I love the legacy question, and that is, when you are 90 years old and you are looking back at your life, what do you want to be known for? What kind of impact do you want to have made? Who do you want to have helped?

Now, I know that when I ask questions like this, sometimes women can start to feel vision shame. They start to feel like what they want isn't big enough because maybe the answer to this question is, "I want to have had a positive impact on my family. I want to help my kids and my grandkids." And I want you to know that what you want is sacred. This is not a measurement according to society's standards. This is a measurement according to your own soul. And I don't want to throw this thing out there like, "Play big or go home," because what is big anyway? I think it's up to you to define what is big for you.

What I want as a coach for my clients is that they're playing their version of big, that they're going after things that are truly fulfilling, that truly feel aligned with their values, what's important to them. That's what matters to me. Who cares what other people think? People are going to judge your dreams no matter what. People are always going to have opinions about what you should or shouldn't want. You have to tune all of that noise out and decide what it is that you want. And if you want to vote for yourself, you need to know what you are voting for, and you can't know that unless you have a vision for your life.

The second way to vote for yourself is to build your campaign promises. It's time that you make bold declarations about who you are, what you deserve, what you want, and own that unapologetically. Stop waiting for permission to pursue your dreams. It is up to you to decide what are your promises to yourself, to the people in your life, to the world. What do you want to promise?

And the way I like to think about these promises are the standards that we hold. One of the concepts that I teach within the membership are standards. And I love to think about it like this, "I am a woman who." I want to think about that, "I'm a woman who takes care of herself. I'm a woman who deserves the best. I am a woman who does what she says she's going to do. I am a woman who serves at the highest level. I am a woman who loves and respects her clients. I am a woman who is passionate and fun. I am a woman who loves herself madly."

Bold promises equal bold results. A lot of times we are making these little tiny promises because we're so afraid of what people are going to think. What if they think I'm conceited? What if they think I'm too confident? Listen, if you want to win at the race of life, you've got to believe in yourself. And I always come at it from this angle. I want to be an example to other women. I think about my daughter. How do I want her to champion for herself? How do I want her to feel about herself? Well, how can I expect her to do it if I'm not doing it?

Along those same lines, you need to have really strong beliefs. If you look at any presidential candidate, no matter what country you're in, they all have very strong convictions and beliefs. And those convictions and beliefs will often repel people, and that's okay. But so often we don't stand in our own convictions because we're so afraid of that one thing. But what I've noticed is that if you don't do that, you're going to attract a lot of people where you don't get to be who you truly are.

For example, one of my big beliefs is that style really matters. What you wear matters. Now, a lot of women have come at me saying, "How dare you be so superficial? How dare you say that what you wear is that important? What are you saying? It's not about what's on the inside?" I've had it all and I have to allow that to be okay because I know the impact that style has had on my life and my clients' lives and I stand very convicted in that.

I also think self-image work is the work that is most important in the personal development world. Coaching really boils down to your self-image. Self-image is everything. If you don't address that, you are going to struggle in every area of your life. You will constantly sabotage your efforts if you don't address your self-image because we will always come back to how we see ourselves always.

I also believe that coaching is one of the most important skills and tools that are available to all of us and that we should all learn. I cannot imagine my life without coaching tools. I cannot imagine where I would be without these tools. Coaching is one of the best investments you will ever make in yourself, and I stand by that 1000%. But there will be people that disagree with me. There will be people that tell me that coaching isn't worth it, that nobody needs a coach, and they can have that opinion. But I know from my own experience and from working with thousands and thousands of clients at this point, because I've been at this almost two decades now, I have seen it with my own eyes, and there's a reason why successful people, the majority of them have a coach.

And so I have these beliefs that I stand firm in. Now, it's easy to stand firm in beliefs when everyone around you is agreeing with you. But what about when they're not? That's when you have to double down on voting for yourself and eventually you stand firm in that and you will attract the right people into your life. So that's number two. Build your campaign promises.

Number three is be your own rally. Be your own cheerleader. I want you to show up for yourself with the same enthusiasm as you show up for some of these candidates that you're supporting. I want you to cheer yourself on, especially when it's hard. Again, it's easy to cheer yourself on when things are easy, when things are going your way, but it's when you're down, it's when you have felt, it is when it looks like it is not going to work out, that is when you need to dig deep and vote for yourself like you've never voted before. You have to act like you are down three points and you've got to rally and vote for yourself in those moments.

And having done this for many years now, I was actually coaching my Diamond group within the membership, and someone was asking me a similar question about what happens when you get in a funk? What happens when you've had success and now you're just not feeling it anymore and you don't know what you want and you're just feeling blah? And what I know to be true is that in life there are seasons and there are going to be seasons when you're down. It's not always roses and champagne and daisies and unicorns, y'all. There are seasons. But why? Because we're human beings with human brains and we're meant to feel negative emotion.

And so yes, we're all going to have seasons when we're down, but that's when we need to vote for ourselves the most. And it takes effort. It's true. An item at rest tends to stay at rest, and an item in motion tends to stay in motion. When you are down, it's like being at rest. You have to really spend more energy getting yourself up, but that's when you need it the most because once you're up and you got that momentum going, then it becomes faster. It becomes more effortless. You are just in motion.

So for any of you that are feeling down right now and you're like, "God, Tonya, I just don't feel like I'm worth voting for. Look at this. Look at this mess I have right now," listen, I want you to be like my friend with her candidate. I want you to just find anything that you can find to believe in yourself. Look for what you want to see. It's all available to us at any moment. We can find ways that we're terrible humans. We can find ways that we're amazing humans.

And it's not that I want you to ignore the things that you maybe want to work on, but I think about Carl Jung, a famous American psychologist. He says, "The interesting paradox is this. When I love myself as I am, then I can change." And when we're down is when we need to love ourselves the most. That's when we need to be our own rally. We need to love ourselves into change, and also be your loudest supporter.

I know this is hard, especially for women. Men don't seem to struggle with this as much as women do, but women have a lot of resistance tooting their own horn, so to speak. We want to be nice. We want to be accepted. We want to not come across as arrogant. We want to not ruffle any feathers. But what often happens is that we just fade into the background of our own lives.

Now, I'm not asking you to go out there and walk down your neighborhood street telling your neighbors how amazing you are. I am asking you that you do that with yourself, that you cheer yourself on. If you have to get up and look in that mirror every morning and be like, "Listen girl, here we go. Today is going to be an amazing day. You know why? Because you are amazing, because you have a vision, because you have things to accomplish and you've done it before. You can do it again. And I know it's hard right now for you, but remember who you are. You are smart, you're capable, you're beautiful. Let's go." That's what I'm talking about. Give yourself a good pep talk, especially when you're down.

The fourth way to vote for yourself is to invest in your victory. Put time and energy where your dreams are. Back yourself up like donors back their candidate. Make choices that show that you are betting on yourself. I think about this client who probably four years ago, maybe a little less than that, it was right when I opened up the School of Self-Image membership, she came to me and she was like, "I really want to join, but I just don't have the money right now." And I laughed because I know that she just came back from a trip to Europe.

Nevertheless, she ended up joining two years later. And today her life is so much better. Within a very short amount of time by betting on herself, not just her membership fee, but putting the time and energy into herself, she has created so much change in her life. And I see this often. Women will say they want to do something, but then they don't. And I'm always very curious about that. What is really holding you back?

There have been so many times that I have invested not only money, but time and energy into something not knowing if it was going to pay off, not knowing if it was going to work out. But what I did know is that I was going to work out, that I was going to be okay no matter what, and believing in myself at that level has helped me to create so much change in my life. It's helped me to accomplish so many things.

And that is what I want for all of you. I want you to be the kind of woman who bets on herself. And it's really hard when other people aren't betting on you. I've had examples in my own life where I have wanted to do something and the people that love me the most are the ones telling me, "I don't think you should do that. I don't know about that. That's a lot of money. I don't know about that. That's a big risk." And what I realized is that they're projecting their beliefs onto me. And so if I keep listening to them, I'm going to stay where I am. We're all going to stay at the same level.

But what I've noticed is that when I just go within and I bet on myself, I evolve to the next level and then those people are like, "Wow," and then they evolve. And then I've had people in front of me do the same thing where they're doing stuff and I'm like, "I don't know about that. That's pretty risky," and then they do it and then I'm like, "Oh, that's what betting on yourself looks like," and then they become an example to me of what's possible.

We all have limitations, every single one of us, that we have placed on ourselves. And that's why we need to do what number five is all about. We need to build our dream team. If you want to vote for yourself, build your dream team. Surround yourself with people who believe in your vision. Surround yourself with people who are doing or have done what it is that you want to do. Find mentors that see your potential. Create a support system that champions for your success. You need to connect with others who dare to dream big.

Environment is powerful, folks. When you surround yourself with the right people, it becomes so much easier to change how you think. It's almost like those limitations that you've placed on yourself will just start to fall away because you don't see examples of them anywhere around you. You're like, "Wow, I've been wearing this ugly dress that no one else is wearing. Maybe I should change my dress." It becomes so much easier.

That is one of the best ways to vote for yourself. Surround yourself with compassionate, high-achieving, loving, successful people who really all they want is to see each other do well. That's the kind of people I love being around. When I look around at my friends, I just want them to be happy and healthy and successful, whatever that looks like for them. And so whenever I see them falling away from my vision of them, I'm like, "What's going on?" Don't forget who you are. Don't forget what you want. I know it may be hard right now, but remember who you are.

Environment is so powerful. Can you change in your current environment? Yes. But if you want to fast track your results, get into a new environment, and sometimes that new environment might be listening to a new podcast, reading new books. You can create your virtual dream team. But as you begin to evolve your self-image, you're going to be attracting different people into your life. And that, my friend, is how you vote for yourself. You have a vision for your life. You build your campaign promises. You become your own rally. You invest in your victory and you build your dream team.

Now, I have a fun challenge for all of you. Okay, you ready for this? I've done this for myself and it's really a fun exercise. I want you to write your victory speech. I'm serious. Please do this for me. You will thank me later. So what I want you to do is I want you to go into the future. It can be a year from now. It can be two years from now. You get to decide the timeline. I love a year. That's usually where I love to go out to. And I want you to act as if everything that you've wanted to create over the year has happened. And I want you to imagine you're standing on a podium, on a stage, and you are delivering your victory speech. What are you going to say? Who are you going to thank? And most importantly, who have you become?

I hope you all have enjoyed this episode. Have a beautiful week, and I will see you on the next episode. Cheers.