How to be Excited About Your Day

Have you ever wondered why some people seem genuinely excited about life while others feel like they're just going through the motions? Well, it's not about luck and it's certainly not about having the perfect circumstances. It all comes down to the mindset that you choose every single day. When you shift how you see yourself, your possibilities and the world around you, life becomes infinitely more exciting, and that's what we're talking about in today's 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.

Hello my friends. How are you doing? I'm recording this on Valentine's Day and I just want to say I love you all. Thank you so much for being a part of this community. It's also my mom's 80th birthday today. She is a Valentine's baby and I'm so excited because she is coming up today and I'm throwing her a big party tomorrow. That's all she wanted. She just wanted her friends and her family around her for her 80th. So I'm so looking forward to spending time with her and my dad and my family. Just simple things. My friends, the simple things.

Today, I have a really fun topic to talk about, but before I do, I want to let you know that I am going to be hosting a free class. It's coming up really soon and it's called the Identity Code. If you have been trying to do your way to success, if you've been taking a lot of action but something still feels off, it's just not working, I want you to listen up. The secret isn't in doing more. It's in becoming the woman who naturally creates and attracts what it is that she wants.

In coaching women for over 15 years, this is the key to everything. This is what is often missing from your personal development journey because let's face it, you probably have the goals. You probably have been taking a lot of action. You've got the strategy, and yet you still keep hitting up against upper ceilings and resistance and you're probably tired. You're like, "I'm just so tired." Come join us. I'm going to share with you how to shift your identity so that you can attract and show up and create what it is that you want. So you can just head over to schoolofselfimage.com/code and come and join us. We're going to have a fun hour together.

Now, today, I want to talk about how to be excited about your day. A few days ago, my soon to be stepdaughter, Ambie, I woke up and I was in the kitchen with her and she was like, "Tonya, why are you always so happy? Why are you always so excited?" Because I generally wake up in the morning just singing and dancing and just so looking forward to my day. And I remember days that were quite the opposite.

I remember waking up and just feeling this malaise, feeling this fatigue, this just overwhelming sense of heaviness about my day. And when she said that, after she left for school, I went and grabbed my journal and I really thought about what she had said, and I started to get curious about why am I just for the most part really excited about my days and full of joy most of the time. Now, not all of the time, I'm human. I get sad, I worry sometimes, but overall, the tone of my life, I will say, is joyful and I am excited about my days. And so I got my journal out and I wrote some things down that I want to share with you.

These are mindset shifts and things that I do now that I wasn't doing then, and I do believe they are a direct reason as to why I do feel excited about my days and excited about my life. Okay, the first thing is you need to get clear on what you value. I cannot emphasize how important this is. So many people are just living lives on default. They're living out of just routine and mundane habits and oftentimes, those actions are out of alignment with what they value. And many people don't even stop and ask themselves, what's important to me? What do I want to be the foundation of the life that I live? And so if you think about it, if deep down adventure is a value of yours and yet you have nothing adventurous on your calendar, every day is just the same boring routine, you can see how you're not excited about your life.

Now, if your value is security, then that routine may feel really good to you, and this is why it is so important that you know what you value. It's why it's one of the core things that I teach within the School of Self-Image. When you come into the membership, one of the first things that you will do is you will define your core values. I lead you through a process of figuring out what those are, because I understand that if you are not clear on these things and you're not building your life based on what you value, you are always going to feel out of sync. Something's going to feel off, and chances are you won't be excited about your life because you're not honoring what is important to you.

The other thing is you need to know what makes you feel alive because if you think about excitement, it's a very vibrant energy. It's a very intense emotion. It is the experience of being alive. And yet, do you know what makes you feel alive? Do you know what you love? Do you know what you enjoy? Because we got to find that spark and light it up again because it's within you.

I was coaching a woman not too long ago and she was in a state of just not enjoying her life. She had just come into the membership and she was just apathetic about her life. And I asked her the question, I said, "What do you love? What do you enjoy?" And she couldn't answer me. She had not asked herself that question, and so she was just waking up, going through the motions, just getting through the day, repeat, day after day after day. You can see how it's so easy to fall into the trap of just default living and being so unfulfilled.

I want you all to really think about the question, what brings me joy? What do I love? What am I passionate about? And if you can't answer it, it's not a reason to give up. It's a quest for you to go out there and figure out because that's what we want to bring into your everyday life. The reason why I'm so excited about my life is that I know what I value and I know what I enjoy, and so I make that a part of my everyday life, and it comes down, truly, to simple things most of the time.

I love beautiful music. So guess what I do first thing in the morning when I wake up? I make my bed and I turn on beautiful music that embodies the essence of the life that I want to live. I know that I love candles, I love flowers, and so I make that a part of my environment. I know that I deeply enjoy being around really cool people. And so every week I'm making that part of my experience, and that's one of the reasons why I feel so excited about my days is because I understand what excites me.

The other thing that's going to have to happen in order for you to be excited about your day is that you need to look around at your life and look at what you are tolerating because you don't get what you want, you get what you tolerate. The times that I have been the least excited about my life were also the times that I had high tolerance for BS. Really think about it. I was tolerating friendships that didn't support me. I was tolerating my own just bad behavior, the way I was treating my body, the way I was talking to myself. That's the thing, how can you be excited about your day when you're beating yourself up day after day after day?

And this is a great segue into the next one, because they're very much intertwined. If you want to be excited about your life, you need to stop complaining. I think about the times in my life where I would just sit around and complain about things and just continue to tolerate them and yet do nothing about it. Eckhart Tolle said if you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options. Remove yourself from the situation, change it or accept it totally. Anything else is just going to lead to misery. Anything else is just going to keep you stuck.

Anytime I find myself complaining, I'm like, "Listen, I know this is not going to lead to a result that I want." And I will immediately say, "Okay, Tonya, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to just accept it? Are you going to leave it? Are you going to change it? What are you going to do?" Because excitement and complaining don't coexist together. Excitement is going in one direction. Complaining is taking you into a different one.

So I invite you just to pay attention to what you are complaining about and what you are tolerating in your life and decide that you are going to either remove yourself from it, you are going to change it, or you are going to accept it fully. And when I say accept it fully, I mean accept it. I mean, women will come to me and they're like, "I hate my job." I'm like, "Well, okay, let's change it." And they're like, "No, I'm not going to do that. I can't." And so I get to coach them around why they think they can't, but sometimes they are just hellbent, "I am going to stay in this job." And I'm like, "Okay."

So now, now what? Now it's time that you accept it, that you change how you're showing up in it, that you create the feeling that you want in the job that you have. Because if you're not going to leave, there's nothing worse than staying in something and complaining about it, knowing you're not going to do anything about it. That is no formula for being excited about your life.

The next thing that I have noticed that I have had really over the last 15 years that has led me to be a woman who is joyful and excited about life is that I always have a goal out in front of me. And not only a goal, I always have things planned in front of me because progress creates excitement. Things to look forward to in the future create excitement. Even the smallest goal, learning something new, planning a trip, starting a project, it gives you momentum and you don't feel like you're stagnant. You don't feel like you are stuck. And so it's important that you have goals.

Again, one of the first things that we ask members to do is to get clear on what is your goal for this year. What are you moving towards? And even just claiming that I've seen women go from stuck to suddenly feeling this excitement. But when you're choosing your goals, it's really important that you're choosing goals that you're excited about because oftentimes we pick goals that we think we should pick. Maybe you're in business and you're thinking, "Okay, I should pick a revenue goal because everybody says that's what I should do." But maybe that revenue goal doesn't excite you. Maybe your goal of you reaching a certain number of people, maybe your goal of creating a certain product, maybe that excites you, it will most likely lead to revenue, but the focus on the revenue may not excite you.

Maybe the goal of losing 20 pounds again after you've had that same goal for the last 10 years, it just doesn't excite you anymore. You're like, "Ugh, I got to do this again." But could it be exciting to think, "You know what, this year I'm going to go climb Mount Kilimanjaro" or, "I am going to get in shape this year. This is going to be the year that I do a pull-up." Finding goals that actually excite you are important because if you're picking goals that are should goals, if you're picking goals that really don't honor your values and who you are as a human, like your soul, it's not going to be exciting. And so again, I want you to have a goal and it needs to be one that really excites you, that you're excited to wake up in the morning and actually create.

Another way to be excited about your day, and I think this one is so important. I mean, if you're in the membership, you know that we believe in the power of our environment. And when I think about my life today, I am surrounded by people who have fire, who have life force. In fact, last night, Fonz took me to this really beautiful private dinner. He surprised me for Valentine's Day. And every single person in that room had an energy. They had this fire. You could tell they had this love of life. It was just so contagious being in that room with all of these people who are doing interesting things. They're moving forward in their lives. They're enjoying their lives because we do become the people we surround ourselves with.

I just taught a class for Live Like an Editor, and I said, "What surrounds you seeps into you." What surrounds you seeps into you. So if you're surrounded by negative people, if you're surrounded by people who are complaining and who don't have goals, and who are always talking about how stuck they are, that is impacting you.

Now, I want to say this because some of you may be listening to this and you're like, "Tonya, you're describing my entire family and all of my friends and I just don't know what to do." You don't have to leave the people that you love because I've been there. I get it. But I want you to consider that you can begin to expose yourself to new people. And it can be in the form of this podcast. It can be the books you read. It can be the communities that you become a part of. And what I have seen in my life is that as I change, the people around me begin to change, and some of those people exit.

It's just the reality of how energy works. It's just the reality of our own reinvention and evolution because some people will no longer be a match for who you're becoming. And I see this fear of losing people stop women from diving into this own beautiful journey of reinvention. And it's a valid fear. I get it. I totally get it. And I don't ever tell my clients what to do. I never tell them to leave or to stay. That is something that only your soul knows what to do. But here's what I want you to consider.

I've come to the place in my life where I want the people around me to really love and appreciate me. If you cannot handle my love of life, if you can't handle my ambition, if you can't handle my excitement, if you can't handle my joy, then that's okay. You don't have to handle it. But for far too many years, I dictated my behaviors. I kept myself small to try to please the people around me, and I suffered because of it. And I just don't want to suffer unnecessarily anymore. I just trust that the people that are meant to be in my life will.

I love the people in my life. Even the ones who complain, even the ones who have different values than me, I still love them. But if they choose, if they choose, I'm not going to choose it because these are the people that are close to, I'm thinking family. But if they choose it, then that's their choice. But I want to always be a woman who chooses me because I know when I choose me, I have so much more to give to everyone else around me.

Now, another reason why I'm excited about my days is that I am so curious about life, and I'm always open to an adventure. So when I say curious, I mean I'm always wondering what if. And I've learned to have positive what ifs because I think when I was not excited about my day, I was always thinking, "What if nothing changes? What if I can't lose weight? What if this person leaves me? What if I lose my job?" It was just always like negative what ifs.

Now, I'm like, "What if the best years are ahead of me? What if something magical happens today?" It's almost like this childlike wonder that I continue to have. And not only that, I'm always learning new things. In fact, I have recently become obsessed with Pilates. For my birthday Fonz bought me a month pass unlimited to this Pilates studio that's right around the corner from our house. And I went the first day and I was like, "Oh, that was actually fun." And so I went back the next day and the next day and it's like I cannot get enough.

It's making me excited to wake up and get started with my day. And those are the things that I want you to discover about you. What are some things that you want to learn about? What are some things that you want to experience? Where are places that you want to go? Make it happen. Life is too short, you all.

I think about my dad. He is at the end of his life. He is suffering from Alzheimer's and some other issues. And I wish I could just talk to him now and ask him, "Hey Dad, what are those things that you wish you would've done?" Because I do know when I worked as a critical care nurse, and I had those conversations with people at the end of their lives, it was often filled with regrets. Like, I wish I would've done this. I wish I would've done that. And here we are. We have the opportunity to learn from those people who tried to tell us, who tried to warn us, do the things. Wake up. This is our one life. Don't be stagnant. Don't sit around and tolerate things that you don't want. Don't sit around and complain about your life. Don't take it for granted because one day we'll be at the end as well.

And I always think about my 90-year-old self. What would she tell me? Because at the end of my life, I want my 90-year-old self to be raising a glass and being like, "Girl, you did good. Well done, darling." But I know that in order to have that happen, I'm going to have to make choices now. I'm going to have to do uncomfortable things. I'm going to have to maybe disappoint people. I'm going to have to go after things and fail and sometimes fail publicly.

I'm going to have to put myself out there. I'm going to have to say no to some things. I'm going to have to say yes to other things, and I'm going to have to keep learning and growing. You know what I find so fascinating? It's like when we're kids, we tend to have that excitement and we have so many years ahead of us, but as we get older, if we're not mindful, we will become apathetic. We will start to just live in this general fatigue and start running stories that our best years are behind us. And I don't know, I was just thinking the other day, as we get older, our time is more limited. We should be the opposite. We'll be like, "Oh my God, I'm going to make the most of this because maybe I don't have that much left."

I mean, no one's guaranteed anytime, right? Could be tomorrow for any one of us, God forbid. I hope that's not the case, but no one's guaranteed anything. But I just find it so fascinating that as we get older, if we're not mindful, we can fall into this trap of not living fully, of just beginning to go into a shell and not enjoying our days when our days are actually limited. And when I think that about my life, some people will be like, "Well, God, that's sad." But I'm like, "Oh no, this is just the nature of life. This is the cycle of life."

And I know I want to see myself. And this all comes down to self-image, you all. I want to see myself as a woman who really loved life, who loved all of it, even the hard parts, because she knew that that grew her. Who really savored the special moments because she wasn't so busy trying to get to the next.

And that brings me to, I think I have more points, but I'll go ahead and add this one in at this point. I really think to fully enjoy and be excited about your days, you need to have a vision of the future that you want. That's how you know what goals to set. It informs who you're becoming, and you need to be in the present. You need to visit that vision, but you don't need to live there and remind yourself of how you're not there yet. Because that vision comes to life by how you show up in the present, in now, the choices that you make right now. And so to really be excited about your day is to be present in your day, to be looking for what you want to see more of, to notice the blessings, to be grateful for what you already have and be excited about creating more.

Two more things that I'm going to add here as to why I think I'm so excited about my days. One of the things that I am very intentional about is changing up my environment. I think we can fall into this trap of waking up, looking at the same things, going the same route, hanging out with the same people, listening to the same things. It's just day in and day out. It's like Groundhog's Day. You're seeing and doing and being the same thing over and over. And so I'm very intentional about switching it up.

Going to try new restaurants. Listening to different types of music. Walking a different path because it really shakes up your mind. It gives you access to new ideas and new thoughts because if you're not mindful, as I was saying before, you'll begin to start to feel just stagnant because you're just doing and seeing the same things all day every day. And so if you want to get excited about your life, change up your environment, put yourself in exciting places, go discover something new. But that has been very important for me in order for me to keep that aliveness and that excitement up. There's so much to discover. There's so much life out there. Go find it. Go see it. Go enjoy it. Go learn from it.

And then finally, the last thing that I was going to offer you is that one of my big practices that contribute to me being a woman who's excited about my day is starting my day out with intention. And so within the School of Self-Image, we just created this brand new daily journal called The Curated Day. And sitting down every morning and being intentional with how I want to show up, what I want to accomplish, and having that guide for my day has been so important.

I've been journaling for many, many years and I've noticed that when I don't journal is often when I get off track. So it reminds me, "Hey Tonya, this is a really important part of your day. So don't neglect it. Don't abandon it." But having that practice in the morning has just kept me living an intentional life, which will make you excited because you realize you get to choose, you get to decide. Life is not happening to you. You are happening to your life. Happen to it on purpose.

And to wrap this up, I want to just say that often, we wait for life to bring us excitement. And one of the things that has changed for me from all of those years ago is that I realize I get to be the excitement. I get to be that energy. I don't wait for life to entertain me. I don't wait for life to bring me things. I go out there and I entertain myself. And I use life as a way to do that. I use the resources that life has provided me to create entertainment, to create joy, to create excitement.

And so don't sit around and wait to be excited, be excited. And the tips that I've given you in this episode should help you begin to discover what that excitement is for you, what you love, what you enjoy, what your goals are, what you value, and begin to design your life around that. Because again, my friends, life is too short in the big scheme of things. It is so short, and I want us to enjoy it, to really live a life that will make our nine-year-old selves so proud.

All right, my friends, I hope you enjoyed this episode. And don't forget my upcoming free class, the Identity Code. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/code and I will see you there. And if not, I'll see you on our next episode. Cheers.