My Top 5 Lessons of 2024

Do you ever stop and think about all of the lessons that life throws your way in a year? I do. And this year I had some powerful realizations and unexpected lessons from the power of patience to the joy of rediscovery. And in this episode, I'm sharing them with you. 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, hello, my beautiful friends. Welcome to another episode. This is going to be a fun one because I'm talking about my five biggest lessons of 2024. I've been having such a fun week. My community manager, Laura Hinton, is in town, and we have been doing a lot of work for the new membership that's coming up really soon. We've been filming and working on the details, and one of the things that we are about to do is host our annual workshop called the Curated Year. This is where all of the members get together and we sit down and intentionally plan our year. One of the things that we do is we take a moment to really assess our last year and think about what are the lessons that we have learned. I find that it's a really powerful exercise to just stop and think about the lessons that you have learned that you want to take with you into the next year.

So I'm going to start with lesson number one. For me, that lesson has been really realizing, and when I say realize, I'm talking about feeling and knowing deep down the power of visualization. Dreaming and visualizing aren't just wishful thinking. They're powerful tools for shaping your reality. And I've always visualized you all, but I don't think I have deeply taken a step back to really see the results of it in my life. Until not too long ago, I was in my backyard, and for those of you who may not know, this year I moved into my dream home. Every part of this home, I have designed with intention, I have curated it with so much love, and there's still a lot of work to be done. My cabinets still aren't finished, but that's a whole different lesson.

But I was in my backyard, and it occurred to me, this backyard, I saw it many, many years ago in my mind. In fact, I remember being in that little cabin up in the woods, some of y'all knew me back then, and it would be snowing. I'm talking about so much snow I couldn't see out of the windows. Of course, I have always been someone who has bloomed where she's planted. I have always been someone that makes the most of where she is. And, also in those moments, I remember daydreaming about my backyard, like what it would be like to have a pool and have sun shining. Even the landscaping, the way I have designed it was all in my mind first. And I don't think I quite realized it until I was walking around my backyard. I'm like, "Oh, my god, honey, you really did think this in your mind. You kept these visions and you thought about them."

But here's the secret. I didn't get obsessed that I didn't have them. I just love thinking about them. Thinking about them, being detached from them happening, or even thinking about how it was going to happen was the fun part of visualizing, going to that place of what if. What if I had this cute little quaint backyard with a pool, with the black and white umbrellas that I have? I saw those too. It was so clear in my mind. With the very manicured boxwoods, with the rose bushes, with the hydrangeas, what if you had that? Wouldn't that be fun? But I didn't allow myself to feel the lack of it. I allowed myself to feel the excitement of the possibility of it. And I released how it was going to happen.

I have done this in so many areas of my life. I've done it with my business. I have done it with relationships. There is power to visualizing what it is that you want and then letting go of how or if it's going to happen. But holding those visions in your mind is powerful, because here's the thing, the brain only knows two things: the words you speak and the images you hold. That reticular activating system, that part of your brain that acts like your personal assistant, she's always working to sift through all of the data, all of the noise, to provide you with evidence for what you're holding in your mind. You may not even know that that's what's happening at the time, but now that I'm in it, I'm like, "Oh, my god, my reticular activating system was on point." She kept guiding me to the opportunities, to the next steps, to the thoughts, to the feelings that match these visions that I was holding in my own mind. So that's lesson number one.

Lesson number two actually surprised me, you all. I was so shocked when I saw myself doing this. I don't know, maybe I've mentioned this in a previous podcast, maybe even last week, but you're going to hear it again because it was a shock. So the lesson here is never say never, because what you resist today may become something that you embrace tomorrow. So here's what happened. I was in my kitchen daydreaming about making cookies. I know, it's such a little thing, but if you would have known me five years ago, and some of you did, I was not that girl. I had raised my daughter. I had done the mom things. I had done the school functions and baking cookies and all of the domestic things, and I was thinking to myself those days are over. Thank God. Hallelujah. Never again. Now I'm going to travel. I'm going to eat at great restaurants. I am not going to be in the kitchen slaving over the stove, cooking for everybody and feeling exhausted. Now, that's exactly what I'm craving to do.

I find it amusing because life really does have a way of surprising you. It really, really does. I think when we hold onto certain identities, that we may miss out on what our soul is guiding us to do. And I'm still that girl who loves to travel, who loves to eat at beautiful restaurants. But this season of my life, I'm wanting to just enjoy the simple things. I want to bake cookies with Ombi. I was at a ball game the other night. I'm like, "What am I doing?" And I'm having the time of my life. It's so much fun. I'm rediscovering the joy in the little things again: the home-cooked meals and just sitting around and having friends over and cooking and the anticipation of putting together a menu. I even have all of my old cookbooks. Remember, we used to have those? I think everybody now just gets their recipes off the internet. But I used to love beautiful cookbooks, and I still have some of my favorites. So I pull them out and I have them in my kitchen.

Every time I look at them, it reminds me of an era of my life that I actually loved until I didn't. It's like I evolved out of that era, but now I'm coming back home to it. Life isn't linear. It's more cyclical. You may find yourself coming back to parts of yourself that you thought were long gone, but you've missed, and you may see yourself stepping into new parts you never knew existed. And I say be open to all of it. Never say never. Maybe you're saying right now, "I will never get married again." What if that's not true? Maybe you're saying, "I will never, ever build another house again," or, "I'll never ever start a business again." But what if that's where your soul wants to take you? I think the real question here is, are you willing to be wrong about what you said you'd never do? Are you open to the possibility that that might be the very thing that your soul urges you to step towards? So that's lesson number two.

Lesson number three is about being patient and playing the long game. I have been in business for over 15 years, and I think sometimes people look at my life and what I've created. And if you've just stepped into my world, it may look like an overnight success story, but it's been one that has taken over 15 years to actually create. What I have found is that success, however you define it, and it's important that you define it in a way that's true for you, in a way that supports you, that aligns with your core values, but whatever it is, you need to practice patience. I see so many people giving up on their dreams because they don't happen the first year. But I do believe it's those of us who are persistent, who stay plugged into our vision, and who keep showing up even after failure after failure, those are the ones who eventually win. How patient are you with your dreams?

I even look at this house. It's my very first house that I've ever owned. I'm almost 50 years old. It has taken a lot of patience, a lot of visualizing, a lot of trust in the process, and just showing up day after day after day. Now I'm here, and I'm so grateful for that me 10 years ago, 15 years ago, who didn't give up, who stayed patient, who really practiced her favorite mantra which is, there is no hurry. What that's allowed me to do, you all, is actually savor the journey. I have had so much fun getting here, because I wasn't always reminding myself of not being there yet. I've been really good at practicing enjoying where I am. Some of the places that I've been, you all, if you would've seen me there, you're like, "I don't know how Tonya Leigh's enjoying that because that doesn't even look like her." But I really did. I was like, "You know what? This is where I am and I am going to make the most of it."

I think this really boils down to one thing. When I discovered this work and I discovered what I call the sweet spot, living as if your dreams have already been answered, I really did understand that the reason why we want anything is because we're after a feeling. And I knew that to be true because there were so many things in my life that I had achieved that I didn't feel the way I thought those things would make me feel. I realized, "Oh, things don't create feelings. Our thoughts do." So I've been really good at managing my mind, focusing on what I have, focusing on what's abundant, and just being patient, and making how I feel the most important thing, not what's around me, but how I feel. Making that my compass has allowed me to be patient and enjoy and savor the journey with so much gratitude.

It's also allowed me to be detached. As much as I love this home, it's so beautiful, and I'm so grateful. But I was talking to Fonz the other night. I'm like, "If we had to up and move, let's go. The next adventure awaits." Having that kind of mentality and attitude has just allowed me to enjoy this home so much more. Because I do believe we create success and then we're like, "Oh, my god, what if I can't keep it?" And we end up not being able to even enjoy the success that we've created because we're so afraid of losing it. And I just know that no matter what happens, I can feel good no matter where I am. To me, it's just the next adventure. But it's required that I stay patient and that I just day by day show up, be consistent, and know that success and fulfillment, it's built over time, and the best way to build it is from that place of gratitude and abundance. So that is lesson number three: be patient and play the long game.

The next one is knowing your core values so that you can have a very clear guide. I've talked openly on this podcast about how I got out of what I call my sweet spot over the last couple of years. This year has been about me moving back into it. What really happened is that I had neglected my core values. I wasn't being true to them day by day. I had gotten so far out of my sweet spot, I was like, "Whoa, something just feels really, really off right now. I don't like how this feels." Over the past year, everything from my relationships to my business, to my health, all of it's been about realigning with my core values day by day. And I am telling you that I am ending this year feeling so aligned.

I share that with you because, number one, I think it's normal. I think it's normal for us to go in and out of our sweet spot. I think it's normal for us to feel out of sync sometimes. We're not supposed to be in alignment all of the time because we're here to experience the contrast. But if you find yourself out of alignment, I want you to think about, do you know what your core values are? Do you know what matters to you most? And I can guarantee you that one of the reasons why you're out of alignment is that, on some level, you're not honoring them. And that's okay. All you need to do is take one step right now after this podcast to honor one of your core values. That's how you get back into your sweet spot, little by little, thought by thought, action by action, day by day. Before you know it, you will feel that alignment that I know you're craving. So that's lesson number four: know your core values so that they can guide you.

Now, I have two more lessons written down here, and I'm trying to decide which one I want to share with you. I think I may share both because you know what? I know I said five, but we're going to go with six. Number five is this: It's usually never as hard as your brain makes you think it is. So let me tell you what I learned this year around this. This time last year, I made the decision to bring on my own team, employees. Up until then, I had always worked with contractors, and there was a freedom to that. But there were also a lot of disadvantages.

When I thought about the School of Self-Image, the vision that I hold for it, the impact that I want to have in the world, how I want to serve my clients, I just knew deep down that my way of doing that was to have my own team who we were all on the same page. And I had been knowing that for a while. When I say a while, I'm talking about almost two years, and yet my brain convinced me that it was going to be so hard to do. Because I thought it was going to be so hard to do, what did I do? I kept procrastinating on the decision.

Listen, you all, I do this work all the time. I know how the brain works. As I tell my clients, "I'm always doing this work alongside you." I saw myself doing this, but for me, I was like, "Oh, I'm different. This is real. This isn't apply to my clients, but it definitely applies to me." It's not true. It's all the same. And I saw myself doing it, and then finally I just had enough. I'm like, "Listen, this is not how I want to see myself. This is not the self-image that I want to have."

I want to, first of all, see myself as capable of doing hard things and being a woman who is true to herself, who's authentic. To me, that's what authenticity is. It's just being true to yourself. And what was true for me is that I knew I wanted to bring on my own team. So I ripped off the Band-Aid, and I told the contractor that I worked with for years and that I love, and I will always say I'm so grateful for her. She helped me get to where I was. But there is the saying too, what got you here won't get you there too. So I had the conversation with her, and I remember just feeling sick to my stomach. I was like, "Ah, this is going to be awful." And then it was nothing. I was like, oh, my god, almost two years of this internal conflict, one conversation, done.

And as bittersweet as it was, because it was like an end of a really beautiful chapter, a beautiful era, but it also was so anti-climatic. It was not what my brain had told me it was going to be. Let me just say that. And then I just did the very next thing. I hired a COO, brought her on. I'm not going to say we haven't had some bumps this year, because we have, I mean, there's a big learning curve to coming into a new company, learning all of the ins and outs, all of the programs, all of the classes, all of the different tiers of membership, our database. All of that, there's a lot for her to learn. And we have intentionally slowed it down this year so that she could get up to speed. We could bring on the right people. But even in all of it, I noticed the other day, I'm like, "Oh, my god, it wasn't that hard." In fact, if I'm being honest, it was actually a little bit easy.

I just laughed because I was thinking about all of the times that I have delayed decisions, because my brain just convinced me it was going to be so much harder. And then I did them, and I'm like, "Oh." You would think that I've learned this lesson by now, but I'm still learning it, obviously. But I do know moving forward, I will catch myself much more quickly. When I am sitting around thinking that something's going to be so catastrophic and so difficult, I'm going to remind myself of this situation, this example, and I have many more as well. But it's usually never, ever as hard as your brain wants to convince you that it'll be.

So here's my last bonus lesson. It's such a good one. I was watching myself the other day, and I was like, "Girl, you have finally learned this lesson," and it felt so, so good. The lesson is, it is okay for people to be upset. Now, I used to be an emotional engineer. What I mean by that, I was really good at trying to get everyone to be happy. You all know what I'm talking about. I know I'm talking to some of you all too. And I was so uncomfortable with other people's negative emotion. So I would try to fix their discomfort so that I could feel better. I watched myself in a situation the other day where I was with two people who were clearly very upset with each other. And I did not get anxious. I didn't get upset. I did not try to fix it. I just let it be. I was over there feeling completely at peace, just so chill. And I watched myself. I was like, "Oh, my god, this is a major, major milestone for you. Tonya Leigh, I'm so proud of you."

I did guide the conversation. I did ask some great questions, but they weren't to fix emotions. They were just to go deeper and hopefully offer some clarity, open up communication in a way that could be very useful for both parties. And I was so proud of myself, you all. It really is okay for people to be upset. And that really boils down to you being okay with you being upset. If you're not okay with you being upset, you're not going to be okay with other people's upset. We are human beings, and we are going to get triggered, we are going to have negative emotion. It's part of the human experience. And making peace with that will bring you so much peace. I even think about my year with my dad. I've had days of just great sadness and also great gratitude all at the same time.

But it's okay to be sad. It's okay to be angry. It's okay to be frustrated. It's okay to feel all of that. And it's okay to let other people feel it. We don't have to manage everybody's emotional life. First of all, it's not possible. Second of all, it takes you out of your sweet spot. So learning to be okay with other people who aren't okay, I don't know how to say this, but I want to say it just makes the situation okay. It just takes one layer of resistance out of an already resistant situation. It brings a sense of acceptance to a situation where we don't have to change anything just yet. We can just all sit here and feel what we're feeling, and then we can look at why. But if you're not okay with feeling what's present, you can't then look and understand why it's even there. So that is my bonus lesson for 2024, and I cannot wait to see what lessons I learned next year.

All right, my friends, I hope you all have a beautiful week. Think about your lessons for this year. I'm going to go in there and sip coffee with Laura Hinton and get to work. All right, I'll see you in the next episode. Cheers.