Becoming the Editor of Your Life with Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy

Tonya Leigh:

Have you ever felt like you were living someone else's story, like you were stuck reacting to life's plot twist instead of writing them for yourself? Well, today's guest knows that feeling all too well. After walking away from a successful corporate career in late 2021, she discovered something powerful: the art of becoming the editor in chief of her own life. Since then, she has launched two purpose-driven businesses, published a book on Amazon, strengthened her marriage and has become a calmer, more present mother. Her secret? Learning to live like an editor. If you are ready to stop living life by default and start creating it instead, I invite you to join us for our upcoming Live Like an Editor Workshop, five days where you are going to learn the exact tools and mindset shifts that helped today's guest transform her life. You can secure your spot at schoolofselfimage.com/editor. And without further ado, let's dive into the before and after story of Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy.

Intro:

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

Tonya Leigh:

You discovered my work through Live Like an Editor and it had such a big impact on your life. So Caroline, thank you so much for being a guest on the podcast and for sharing your story. Welcome.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Thank you so much for having me. I'm very honored and I hope I can inspire more women to go through the journey I've been through thanks to your wonderful community and your teaching.

Tonya Leigh:

Thank you so much. So I'd love for you to take us back to, I think it was 2021 and I'm sure on paper your life looked really successful but something didn't feel right inside. And I think this is something that we hear often with women when they come to the membership. You had just left a corporate career and you described it as you were just burnt out. Paint a picture of what was going on for you back then.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes, I think just to take everybody back, I'm originally from a super small tropical French island in the middle of Indian Ocean. My dream was to live in New York and work for a luxury brand, which felt so foreign and unachievable at the time. And through lots of different circumstances, I was able to come here. And a year in this country, I had my dream job, wonderful brand, and as you said, everything seemed good on paper. I had been following this path of success, ticking the boxes, having the wonderful office with the view and the title and the car and buying an apartment, et cetera. Everything was completed and yet it felt like there was always something missing. And I spent a lot of time, a lot of my free time reading and thinking about what could be missing. I have a wonderful husband who's been very supportive. It didn't really quite make sense.

And in the summer of 2019, I had my daughter, our first and only child, and it was wonderful. Returned to work and started to feel that what I was capable of sustaining at the time felt not possible anymore, like leaving the house and she was still asleep, coming back home, putting her to bed. And this was not the mother I wanted to be. So it started to bug me a little bit. And the pandemic happened in March, we were sent home and I was like, "This is it. This is perfect. I can actually do the work and enjoy my daughter and that will kind of hopefully fill my cup." Maybe the kid was the thing missing in my picture. And it worked for a little bit, but still I felt frustrated, I felt like there was things that I wasn't being seen or valued for.

And as I continued because I didn't know what else to do, I realized, I noticed I was getting angry, I was yelling at my child. There was so much tension and I started to cry of exhaustion and despair in our bathroom almost every other day. I didn't know what else to do. I kept thinking and saying, "I'm at the end of my rope. I don't know what else to do. I'm afraid that if I stop, I'll crash and I won't be able to pick myself up again and things will fall apart and I have to stay in that race constantly, but it's exhausting. I can't take it anymore."

And it went on for a while until I had a conversation with my husband and I was saying, "I know I was bringing some steady income and all the benefits from being in corporate" and he's self-employed. "But could we afford for me to just step out?" Because outside of changing the job, I felt like I had tried everything else. So I left my job without anything else and within two months I was barely feeling any better. So I had to admit that it wasn't the job and it was something else. And I started a quest into understanding myself better. And that's when I stumbled across the School of Self-Image through the Live Like an Editor workshop.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah. Well, before we get to that, I want to understand one of the statements that you made is that you were living life by default. What did that look like for you? Because I think so many of us can relate to that, like we just do what's expected. We wake up thinking the same thoughts, feeling the same ways. What was your version of living life by default?

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

The way I think about it now is I felt I was reacting to things. There was no proactiveness. This is what I would want in my life. In fact, I didn't know really. And I was very tactical on I want more money or I want to travel more. But it remained very short-term and very tactical. And so life happened to me and this happened and I have to react to it and also completely thinking and living my life based on the belief that I grew up in and with.

And so my mother, for example, was a very successful woman, but I think she was pretty much operating from a very masculine energy that didn't really work for her. She didn't take care of herself, she had very low self-esteem and very low self-image, she never wore makeup, she had no skincare routine. She was just going to work to make money and come home and put food on the table and on repeat all the time. There was no destination or not even a path forward other than go through life and hopefully retire with enough money to just finally enjoy. And I remember thinking, and I actually posted on Facebook years ago, "I was surviving my week to leave my weekend," and it felt like this loop, this hamster wheel constantly.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah, I think so many people can relate to that. And it's really interesting. You thought, well, maybe it's the job, you leave your job and you find weeks later I still feel the same. Not much has changed. And then you found Live Like an Editor, which is often how a lot of women actually find my work. And what was it about that workshop that shifted your perspective, that shifted maybe what's possible for you, that started to put you on this completely new trajectory?

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Well, there's different layers. The first is the type of question you ask and the type of reflections that you encourage were things that I had never really done or not very formally. You ask yourself, "Oh, what would I be or what would I do if?" But it just kind of stays in your mind versus actually sitting down and taking the time to ask myself certain questions and go deeper. At a very surface level, just that was huge.

To me, one of the biggest shifts that has been with the workshop and throughout the membership has been you embody how to actually address my objections. Every time you would say something, "Oh, you could live like this" and my mind would serve me something very limited. Well of course you can. You have that much money and you're beautiful. And typically right after, you would bring a story about you or about someone else saying, "This is a type of thing that is possible." And all of a sudden I was like, okay, you just addressed kind of the thing that was coming up to mind and I cannot have that thought because you just showed me, proved me wrong. And so constantly, even if at first it still felt unreal, it felt like, sounds lovely.

Tonya Leigh:

For you. I get this all the time-

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

... It's easy for you. I don't know how I'd do that.

Tonya Leigh:

That's easy for you to say, Tonya. I'm like, "Do you all realize that I have lived through probably every objection that you have to what I'm saying right now?" That's how I can anticipate where your brain's going to take you. And those objections are actually what is standing between where you are and where you want to be. And so the fact that you are willing to allow possibility into your life, even with the objections and be curious about them because that's one of the big tools that we teach in the membership is being curious. Why do I think that way? Where did that come from? What is the cost that this belief is costing me?

And so you join Live Like an Editor, and then you join the membership and your life is so different now. It's very different. And so we have a picture of the before, burnt out, looking for the solution outside of yourself, which is basically what you were doing. And then what were the key moments on your journey that really woke you up to, it's actually all within me. I get to decide without anything changing around me. Do you remember what those key moments were for you?

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

In the process, I became a coach and actually I found a coach for burnout, women professional. And that's how I started to understand that there was something else to look into, which was me. And as I was being coached, I had two columns in my notebook. I had the column for me and the column to help others. So I was like, "Oh, this input is going to be helpful for my ex-colleague, Anna, who was struggling with this." And I kept doing this until I actually said it to the coach who was only on the phone. I was like, "I keep doing this. Can I do something so that I can help my ex-colleagues and friends?" And so I became a coach and through the certification, which was essentially not my goal, I didn't want to be a coach, I just wanted to learn the tools and help friends, I discovered this passion and this purpose.

But through certification was something very clear from all of the master coach saying, "You want to find other coaches, you want to be around other coaches, you want to have your own coach." And that's how I joined the membership as well. I was like, it makes sense because then I will have a new perspective from a professional coach that I admire and so understanding that, that "Oh, there's actually something that I haven't looked into much." And then having a coach constantly reflecting back, and sometimes I sat in group coaching calls with you where I don't submit a topic, but everything you say I'm like, "Ooh, that's for me. Ooh, I need to reflect this way."

And so it became a habit of constantly looking inward to the point where now when I feel just a tiny bit tense with my daughter, she's five and she can have tantrums, the old me would've been lashing out or kind of blaming her. And now I'm like, "Okay, let's take a scan here. Have you slept well? Do you feel stressed?" I go back to me and often I feel, yep, you didn't sleep early last night. You know that. So here you are. And so taking responsibility and understanding the correlation between me, my self-care, my mental health, my physical health and how I behave in the world and how that impacts others now is automatic. The moment there's tension, I'm like, okay, what's what's going on inside that is causing me to behave this way? Nothing like that would've been able ... I would not have been able to do that when I started on that journey.

Tonya Leigh:

That is so interesting that you're bringing this up right now because right before we got on this call, I was in the kitchen and I was feeling some anxiety and Fonz came in there and he's like, "Well, maybe you should do this and maybe you should do that." I was like, "No, it's me. It's me. It's not anything outside of me right now. It's me." For me, it is the best news ever. Whereas the old me, just like you, I would want to find fault, I'd want to blame this person, but knowing that I'm the one creating it is how you get your power back. It's like, okay, if it's me, then let me go in and see what I'm thinking. Where am I focused right now? Did I sleep last night? Do I need to eat?

But knowing that I'm in control of my emotional state of being is the most liberating news ever because the old me, very much like probably the before you was just always reacting, trying to change the world in order to feel better. And it's just a recipe for misery because the world's going to be what it is. The five-year-old daughter, she's going to have temper tantrums. The job is going to be the job. But when you realize that all of your power is within you, it's the most liberating way to live in this world. And to me that's what it means to be the editor in chief of your life. It first starts by acknowledging that I am in charge of my own experience. So I'm curious, when you went through Live Like an Editor, when you walked away from that workshop, what did you take away for you in terms of what it means to be an editor of your life?

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Especially the first year finding that one word that was so challenging. I kept looking at the surface. I remember vividly I was on Canva and I was trying to put that picture together and that title and I was like, "Okay, I want to mix a color with ..." I was trying to find, create a word, but it wasn't the task. It wasn't what was going to help me. And eventually you said to me, "You need to pick one word and you don't change it." And this is how through the Facebook group, I remember having a lot of feedback from the team and from the members and I landed on bold. And to me, just going through that exercise the first time was a journey of discovery, of like, oh my God, I'm so surface level. It's such a challenging thing to just go inwards and really find that word that I want to embody.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

And the thing that is with me every day since is asking myself the question, how would bold me, how would worthy me, how would discipline me, which has been my word over the years, would behave right now or would do right now? How would she think? And having that gives me a compass. It makes decision making so much easier because there's no true answer, or if there is, they're in the same realm. It just reduces the amount of overwhelm around like, oh my God, this is happening. I'm like, yeah, I'm bold, so that's what I do. Or I'm worthy. That's what I do. And to me, that's really the habit that I've kept all along and that's been really transformative.

Tonya Leigh:

What's your word for this year?

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Expensive. I initially chose stretched because one thing you talk a lot about is we live inside within the edge of our self-image. And I started to play at the end of the year of really stepping out of my comfort zone and seeing what happened and magic happened. And I was like, okay, it felt so scary to step out, but the rewards were amazing. So I chose stretched, but then there was some negative connotation with stretched, so it went to expansive as a way to just really step out of my comfort zone and explore the exciting unknown.

Tonya Leigh:

So good. And even as you journey throughout your year and your faced with these decisions, like the expansive version of you will answer very different than the default version of you.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

I love that you use that as your guiding question throughout the year because it just gives you so much clarity in those moments where maybe you are hitting up against an obstacle, you're stressed, you're anxious, you're like, "Wait, what would the most expansive version of me think right now? What would she be doing? How would she be showing up?" And it just gives you instant clarity of how to shift your energy in those moments. That's beautiful.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes. And I also, in my experience, sometimes I don't even answer the question, but asking the question, changing something in how I feel and how I think, and it also becomes so automatic that sometimes it's the opposite. The question doesn't even arise and I'm like, yep, and I'm going to act this way because that's who I am, and that's towards this version of me that is being birthed right now. And so that's how we're going to do it. But it kind of subconsciously feels like it's always there and without effort. Even earlier, now, it's definitely feels a lot more automatic. And if I may, one thing that comes up often is what would Tonya do? Because throughout the years you share stories, some of them have really stayed in my mind and you kind of give me permission because you've share your experience so much over the years. It tells me that it's okay, it's okay to have certain standards, it's okay to ask for certain things, it's okay to behave such a way. And that was also something that throughout my exposure to all your work has been extremely helpful.

Tonya Leigh:

Oh, I'm so glad. I learn through stories so I think that's why I often tell stories because if I can see possibility in someone else through a story versus them just telling me theory, I'm much more likely to be able to relate and apply it to my life. So I'm so glad that my stories help. In the membership, I am pretty much a blank canvas or not blank canvas, an open book. That's the term I'm looking for because I think all too often we only see the highlights of people's lives and we don't realize what they had to go through to get there. We don't realize the challenges. And so I often share those just so you know when you're going through those challenges, I often tell you all, "Nothing's gone wrong here. This is just part of the journey. This is the way it's supposed to unfold."

And watching women just overcome challenge after challenge just by shifting their mindset is what I live to do. It's one of my most fun things, and that's what I've seen you do. When I think about your life now, in fact, why don't you paint all that you've accomplished from doing this work? So we went from 2021, burnt out, leaving a corporate job, new mom, still burnt out even after leaving your job to now you've accomplished so much. Well, you started two businesses?

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

Published a book. What else have you done?

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

I am also supporting my husband who has two photography studios and I'm raising an amazing child. I'm much more present for her. Yeah, it's a lot, just that.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah. So what would you say are your three biggest shifts that you made that helped you to get from that before to that after?

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Definitely looking for solutions in me, as you were saying. And I think part of that journey is painful.

Tonya Leigh:

Say more.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Because for so long I have lived oblivious to the power that I held over my life and circumstances. And when all of a sudden you actually realize that you had so much more control than you thought, and now it's time to unpack all of the things that didn't go right or well or good, and look at it from a perspective of maybe there was some part of responsibility. And it's not as if we're blaming, but looking back, historically, I'm not for ruminating on problems, but I like to look at the problem from back then and to avoid it and really analyze what went wrong in a way or what did I do that landed me where I had been. And that could be cathartic at times, and think that it's something that gets in the way. I see some people who are aware that that might happen and they don't even start the journey by fear of surfacing old wounds and realizing that if I had known what I know now, things could have been completely different. But I'm always looking forward, this has been always kind of my nature.

So I went through and I'm still going because every time you unpack something, another layer eventually appears and there's always something else to just examine. But definitely that. Definitely understanding how much control, power did I have over my life and circumstances.

I think the other thing that really landed super powerfully for me when really when I started joining the membership and kind of understood the three core principle that you teach around mindset, around surroundings and style, the surrounding part was still new to me. Understanding the importance of who you surround yourself with, but also where? I think a lot to this day, I've consumed so much content around personal development and other coaches, and everyone talks a lot about the people you surround yourself with, which is so important and I realize it now. But you're one of the few, if the only one that I really hear talk about the space, the place you put yourself into. And so to me, I had a light bulb moment of like, whoa, really? And now it's having an audit of the people that I surround myself with is also something very routine. I notice when I'm in an interaction that that doesn't feel right or that drains me of energy and I know to be like, okay, that was lovely and I'm going to go, versus in the past I would've people pleased and stayed there and entertained-

Tonya Leigh:

Work on your thoughts about that person. Yeah.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

Listen, and you've probably heard me say this. I'm like, "Yes, I know it's my thoughts creating how I feel right now around this person. But quite honestly, I would rather be using my thinking to work on other problems than to try to feel a certain way around this person."

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

It is our choice, and there are certain people that we choose to be around that may be challenging, but we like our reason for choosing to be around them. I'm like, "Okay, on those certain examples, I will work on my thoughts," but if it's just someone I've been placed in a room with that it's just not a match. Nothing wrong with them, nothing wrong with me. I'm like you. I'm like, "I'm just going to remove myself from this interaction and bless you. I hope you go well. But this just isn't aligned." And that's one of the things that we do talk a lot about in the membership is the power of surroundings. And as you said, it's just not the people that you hang out with. It's everything that's around you.

It's the books on your bookshelf, it's the music you listen to, it's the clutter or not clutter depending on how you keep your home. All of it is sending a message to you about who you think you are. And so one of the things that as you know we do is we work on being very mindful of the places and spaces and things that we surround ourselves with. How did you apply that to your life? What did you notice that you started doing as it relates to your surroundings that had a big impact on your self-image?

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Really this audit. I knew about it and I used this knowledge not very specifically or very intentionally over the years. But two years ago I read a book on the beach who had this exercise and you had to write down the five people you spend the most time with. And I took a piece of paper out and I started to write names. It was hard to find five people. So that was my first insight, I was like, "Whoa, Caroline, you isolated yourself so much through working for yourself over the years that it's challenging to find five people." That's a big red flag here.

And then when I really had to be honest with the time, then I had a client as the fifth person on this piece of paper, and it was not necessarily the most energizing client either. And I remember looking at this piece of paper and thinking, this needs to change. And I'm sure energetically something changed. I didn't feel like I worked intentionally towards upgrading my surrounding, but within three months, three or four complete random, magical, unexpected encounters happened. And those powerful typically inaccessible mentors showed up in my life. And I was like, wow. Immediately I was like, "That's what I thought about on the beach. And here it is."

And now, for example, I have completely curated my Instagram following. I don't go on Instagram very often, but I've removed any account that doesn't sit right with me or doesn't feel aligned with the person I want to be. Back to what you were saying, I think I gave myself permission to walk away from a conversation or a group that doesn't feel energizing with love. But to the point you're making, it's not for me. And I think it's also very linked to listening to my intuition. I feel like I recognize, I always had a very strong intuition about the people that were a match for me versus not. But I used to not listen to it and try to rationalize my way through, well, maybe you should stay or find myself a reason.

But now even if it doesn't make sense, it's like it doesn't sit right, I'm just going to walk away. Really limiting the core circle around me. And even at times as everyone, sometimes my spouse could be an amazing source of energy and sometimes could be very stressed and I just learned how to not absorb too much or find the right dose when there's a lot of stress on his end that I don't want to absorb, or I will support but know how to take my distance when things like that happen. So now it's really automatic. Instantly I'm like, not helpful so I step out.

Tonya Leigh:

I think you made such a good point though, because it's not just leaving certain places. It's also when you start to embody a different energy, also the surrounding starts to surround you. Whatever you're embodying, you begin to look for it, call it in. And so that's why I love the work that we do because it's not just inner work, it's working with the external to prove to yourself this is who I'm becoming, but also as you're becoming the world around you begins to change as well. Just like you calling in these mentors.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

That was a direct reflection of who you were becoming.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes. And I think also it's so powerful that you're saying this because my husband hasn't done any coaching or any therapy over the past few years where I went through my own transformation, and there was times where I wondered, is this going to last? Because I'm becoming someone so different and he's not in a way, he's not doing the same type of work. And at the time there was so many examples around me of people who had gone through that journey and divorced and found a new partner, and typically they're both coaches or both in the same kind of personal development area, and I just didn't want that to last. And the magic is he is a different person. He kind of matched how I was going. Now I hear him sometimes have conversation with friends and he used my lines or my way of thinking of like, "Wait, who are you?"

It is not just for me. The relationship I have with my daughter is completely transformed through that work. The moment I realized I really needed help was this moment where she didn't want to leave the playground. We really had to go. I had to force her into the car seat and she was fighting me and I buckled her, went in the car, closed the door and yelled out of my lungs, which is not me. And I was like, I can't. I can't continue like this. And now she can have a much bigger tantrum, and I check in with myself and I'm like, all good. "What's going on honey?" I can really just really ease her tantrum just by being so much more aware of myself and having done so much work and being able to observe her thoughts and mine, or her behavior and my thoughts and be like, "Oh, okay, well, she must be tired." Where in the past it would've been like blow up.

Tonya Leigh:

I feel like every mom's been through that until we learn these tools. I know I was. My poor daughter when she was young, I bet she thinks now, "I wish mom would've had these tools when I was five or six." But I also believe we learn them when we're supposed to and thank goodness that we have learned these tools because I think one of the biggest gifts of doing this work is the impact that it has on the people around you.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes. Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

I get to see this every day. I get emails from husbands, I get emails from partners. I even got an email from someone's child just saying, "Thank you so much. Everything's different." And all it takes is one person changing to really affect the dynamic of the entire home. It's the ripple effect. It's the butterfly effect that happens when you do this work. So we talked about surroundings. I'm curious about your style. How does that impact your journey?

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

To me, that would be the third-biggest change. It is also something that I have not heard anywhere outside of the School of self-image and to this day, no matter how many tools and I know about upgrading my energy and my state of being. In times of challenges, and when I feel like, okay, I know I should be doing this, and I try, sometimes I feel overwhelmed and I try a meditation, breathing exercise, try to write my ... I try everything and it's not working as good. I was like, okay, let me go in my closet, let me do something-

Tonya Leigh:

Let me go put on an outfit.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

And it just changed so much because all of a sudden it really changes something in my physiology. I feel like, okay, I have to be really precise with makeup and that typically is my go-to. Whenever I try a few things and it doesn't work, again, let me change my look. Let me just put the best outfit I can together and be that person.

Tonya Leigh:

Okay. What do you think is going on there? What do you think when you do that, and you've tried meditation, you've tried journaling, whatever you try and you go and put on an outfit. Let's think about this. What do you think is happening?

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

I think two things. One is my ... It's a little bit of a distraction from ruminating the thing. All of a sudden, I am not going to go and just pick something randomly. I have to look and decide. So that a little calmer and a distraction to my mind racing. And really I think it all goes back to me, how can I look and feel beautiful and in my power? And all of a sudden I suspect my subconscious mind catches up and be like-

Tonya Leigh:

This is what we're doing today.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

So it's like a pattern interrupt because you've got to go pick out an outfit. So you're interrupting that pattern and it's also you telling your brain what to think by what you are physically wearing.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

So good.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

I'm telling you. I mean now, but this is why I'm such a big advocate for style, and I think sometimes people think, "Oh, she's going to tell us to wear designer clothes." It's not that at all. It's you being intentional and choosing things to help you embody the energy that you want to embody. That's all it is.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

You're telling your story on purpose.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

So good.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes, you're being in control.

Tonya Leigh:

What about your belief now that anything is possible? Tell us about that.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

I'll be honest, I can still feel the resistance at times when I think about bigger goals that still feel far, but to the point that we were making, now I know it's just my mind talking and it's not me, and it's just really then bringing a different energy within my thought. Be like, okay, I hear what you're thinking and this is not how we're going to go. And now it feels possible. And at the same time, on the day to day, the progress is small. It's small incremental steps. It's just really looking back that I see, wow, I'm doing this now when just a year ago I would never thought I could do all of this and feeling calm and not stressed out.

So it's a combination of trusting yourself that these little steps on a daily basis are going to get you to where you want to go, even though if you look at just a day, it doesn't feel like that. But also for me, I think the awareness of the thoughts that would come in my way and be like, okay, I hear you and I know you're doing this for my best interest for survival, and we are not going to go this way. And slowly bringing that on board. So now the pattern interrupt is a lot faster over time than it used to be for sure.

Tonya Leigh:

But you said something that's so key. I actually did an Instagram Reel yesterday talking about this very thing because I did this really cool exercise where I went back to my early 20s and I started to document milestones throughout the years. And it was about 15 years ago where I could see on paper that I was having exponential growth year after year. And I was like, "Oh, that's so interesting. What shifted in me? What were the big shifts that allowed me to go from years of very little growth or some years it felt like a setback to year after year of having big growth?" And I boiled it down to number one, that was around the time that I stopped trying to fix myself because it seemed like every year it was like, "Okay, I got to fix my body. I got to fix my bank account." It was like I'm such a huge problem that needed to be fixed, and I switched from fixing to I get to create. I get to create myself. It's a very different energy.

But the other thing that I noticed around that time, and it goes to what you were saying, that's when I started to focus on the little tiny habits, the little tiny shifts because I think so often we get so caught up in the big picture and I love a big goal, but we focus on that and feel the lack of being there, we feel the enormity of what it's going to take to get there, and it often just slows us down versus about 15 years ago is when I just started focusing on the daily process. Because I always say a well-lived life is nothing more than a collection of well-lived days. And so I really just started to focus on my daily life and it compounds over time as you were saying.

It's like you look back after a year and you're like, wow, in the moment I didn't realize taking a deep breath and not reacting to my daughter was a big deal. But 365 days of that, you've completely birthed a whole new you. So I love that you brought up the power of these tiny daily shifts because I don't think women realize how enormous they are. They don't give themselves enough credit for these little tiny things that they're doing that with consistency and over time is going to add up.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes. I couldn't agree more. At the time, I was looking for a big massive solution, something that I had missed for some reason, and it was going to come in and change everything. And I agree over time, I've just picked little habits, they feel so trivial, and yet I have witnessed, faster than I anticipated actually, the shift. There's two of them that come to mind. One is practicing gratitude. And at first I was journaling gratitude every day, and I did it for a very long time. And I realized that one of the things that I want to do is role model for my daughter, and she cannot see that I'm journaling on gratitude every day, especially every night because she's in bed.

And so I started thinking, okay, how can I model that? And the way I do it is I just express gratitude out loud whenever happens on small things, having all green lights on the way to school when we are late, finding the perfect parking spot on a busy day. And I do it out loud to the point where now she does it too. She's like, "Oh, we should thank universe for that." Great. And these little things really change something. I started to pay attention to all the little thing I could be grateful for so that I could say it out loud and model for her. But it changes something for me too. I don't pay as much attention to what's not working.

Tonya Leigh:

But think about the generational impact of that. She grows up and one day if she has kids, it's just what she does, and then she passes that along. That's huge. In the moment, you're just doing gratitude. Now you're teaching her to do gratitude that she's going to share with her family. It's so beautiful when you think about, again, the ripple effect that this work has.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

That was one. What was the other one?

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

The other one was also related to her. It actually came for one of the realizations that I am still unpacking right now is I realized that even as I moved into coaching, I was still trying to embody a version of me that would be accepted by corporate. And I honestly thought it was my authentic self, that I loved the business and the money and not the money, I like the money, I do, but I really like thinking about financial planning. And I read books about money. It's really something that energizes me. Now I realize that it's probably an inherited belief from the way my mother was living and not my natural essence. And one of the work that I've been doing is to start having I am statements towards the version I want to be. So obviously I have my word of the year, but it'd sometimes be, I am beautiful, something which would've cost me to say a couple of years ago. I am worthy, I am strong, I'm smart, I'm capable.

And I made this a practice to repeat those statements to me in the morning, in the evening, and whenever there's empty space. So I walk in the kitchen to grab a snack, I think about my I am statements, and I saw the shift in me within a couple of weeks of really all of a sudden standing more straight and having clarity on certain things at work and how I show up in conversations. And so I started a routine with our daughter where at bedtime we do what we call haka, which is this New Zealand dance that the rugby men do before the game. And we do something a little similar, a little more gracious because she's a ballerina, but with repeating statements and she knows them by heart. And often she's like, "Oh, we need to add, I am healthy in our haka." I say sure. And so we do that at bedtime. So that-

Tonya Leigh:

I love this so much. I feel like you should record this and share it with the membership so we can all do it at night. That is so awesome.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes. Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

Gosh, that's so great. Yeah, it's the little habits. For me, even just making my bed every morning. It takes no time, but it's about what it represents. It's like this is how I want to start my day now. Every time I walk past my bed, it is sending a message to my brain of I am a woman who takes the time to make her bed. I'm a woman who keeps her home organized. It's a little habit that says so much, but in the morning when I'm making my bed, it doesn't seem like it's that big of a deal. But these habits, as you know, they add up.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes. Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah. So what would you say to a woman who may be where you are, were, feeling burnt out, knowing she wants more, but she just feels stuck, she doesn't know what to do? What advice would you give her? Where should she start?

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

The biggest lesson I've learned of burnout is isolation. We isolate ourselves. And over the years I've seen or heard at least two type of stories. One being, "Well, I'm the only one struggling with this. I want to be normal. I want to be like everybody else. But I feel ashamed to admit that I'm not in a good place, so I'm just not going to talk about it and I'm going to put a mask on," which I used to do, pretending everything was amazing, but deep inside I knew I wasn't good.

And so there's either that or the other story that I hear sometimes is like, "Well, everybody struggled with this, so if there was a solution, we'd know about it. So why even bother?" And so we don't really surround ourselves with people who are going to be conducive to our wellbeing and our growth. And so to me, the moment I joined the membership, then all of a sudden, even passively, even just sitting and listening to others or going on the Facebook group and reading the story of others, all of a sudden you're like, "Okay, I'm not alone, nothing has gone wrong, and there's reasons behind why I feel this way, like this other person. And their solutions. There are things that I can do that are within my control." But until you open up, then you're going to stay stuck.

So my primary piece of advice would be surround yourself with people who are going to be supportive and want you to grow. So one, and the other one, part of this is having a role model. To me, there's a story that you shared about, this is my recollection, and maybe it's not exactly accurate, but where you had made a reservation for a specific table at a restaurant, and when you arrived, the table wasn't available and the waitress was offering a different table. And the old me and the old you would probably would've said, "Yes, sure, okay, I'll take it," being kind of frustrated, but just taking it.

But like, "No, I want this table. I made a reservation for this table. I want this table." And to me, having that role model, it's okay to stand up for what you want. It's fair. You asked for something and you're not getting it. But the education I've received as a girl, you don't make waves and you compromise and you make yourself small and just go with the flow made me, at first when I heard you just say the story, I was like, I don't know that I could actually say, "No, no, no, that's not working. I want the table." And now I'm like, yes, now I see it. I was like, did you just try to walk on my feet right now? That's not going to happen. I'm sorry.

But having the example and the role model just gave me permission. And so I think having that, having someone you look up to and constantly ask yourself, what would that person do the way I think of you often, what would Tonya do? What would Tonya say? And have that, just to not commiserate on what's wrong in your life without ever having a solution.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah, I call those slipstreams. I think if we look back over our lives, we can all identify someone that inspired us and helped us get to where we wanted to go much faster than we could have done on our own. And it's like finding your slipstream, I think is so important. Finding someone who's done this work, who understands it, because now you're a slipstream for people. It's like we all just slip together.

But I see so many women, as you're saying, they try to do it alone. There might be shame in them admitting, "I'm burnt out," or "I shouldn't be feeling this way. My life is so good. How dare I complain that I'm exhausted? Just pick myself up, put on a happy face, and let's pretend that everything is okay." And when you live your life in a silo like that, you are unable to get in that slipstream and the energy that's going to carry you further. So I love what you said. I think for all of us, it's about admitting to ourselves the truth of what is being honest with yourself and with the people around you of like, hey, this is what's going on for me right now. And not doing it in a complaining way, but doing it in a way so that you can put it out there so you can then begin to work on solutions to get you out of it.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes. Yes. And I think putting it out in words also, I feel like I was rehearsing these thoughts in my head and not really putting them out. I would say them out loud, but to myself. "I'm at the end of my rope" was something I would say, but never to my husband. Or it was in the bathroom when I was on my own. And I think being able to just put them out in the world, just that sometimes make you realize, whoa, that's what I think. And sometimes just that and talking to someone will have a reaction.

Actually the day before I resigned, there was a friend of my husband at home that I didn't know, and I started to talk about what was going on and I was debating whether I should stay or go. And he was like, "With all due respect, Caroline, I don't know you, but you make no sense right now." And for me, I was like, that's not me. I make sense. So if I'm at the point where this very kind gentleman who's been so kind to listen to my story for five minutes, tell me that makes no sense, it's like something needs to happen now. And that's how I actually literally made the decision on the spot that the next morning I would resign without anything else lined up because just one conversation with a stranger essentially. But putting it out and having someone reflect back to me helped tremendously.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah. Having those sounding boards for our own brains is so important because we have blind spots. We can't see because it feels so true to us. We feel like this is reality. This is the way the world is, this is who I am. But when you can have someone reflect back to you, "Do you see what you're saying to yourself? Do you see how this is impacting your life? Do you see how you just keep creating the same evidence for this?" All of a sudden it's like, "Oh, I never even saw that this was subconsciously running my life. It's so powerful." Whether it's a kind man who sits down with you for five minutes, or it's a coach or a mentor, it's really important for us to have in order to grow and expand because we all have our edges.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes. And I think one last thing that I would add is repetition because I think at least in my case, I was repeating these negative thoughts all the time and it kind of take someone else to repeat and repeat and repeat another way of thinking until you actually integrate the fact that maybe that's true. And I think one of my first thoughts when I joined the membership is like, "Oh, I've heard this story before. Oh, I've heard this concept before. Oh, this month's theme seems familiar to something I did before."

And yet it is so important to return  old episodes, old topics, or just because even if you were to say exactly the same thing, which sometimes you do, it hits home so much differently as you grow and discover yourself and go down this journey. And it does make such a profound impact because all of a sudden this is something that creates your environment. Living your life by default, and then deciding to do it on purpose is something that you repeat so much that I know, I was like, "Yeah, am I living by default? Am I living on purpose?" It's so powerful. And sometimes my old brain will be like, "Okay, well, we're repeating ourselves here." And I'm like, "Yeah, I need the repetition."

Tonya Leigh:

You have to do those reps to build the muscle.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

You really do.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Yes.

Tonya Leigh:

I had a woman reach out to me the other day, and she's been in the membership for three years. She was like, "Oh my God. It finally clicked." And I'm like, "It always does when it's supposed to. There is no hurry. I trust that it's going to click at the exact moment it's meant to." So I love that. Repetition is key.

Well, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your journey. I'm sure there are so many women listening who can relate to where you've been and are full of hope and inspiration that they can get to where you are now, which when you think about where you are now and let's end with this. It's not so much about what you've created. I feel like that is just a product of something so much more powerful. When you think about where you are now, what is that? If you had to say the three energies that you embody almost all the time now as a part of doing this work, what would you say that is? This allows you to create these results?

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Calm. I would say faith. I think it's faith in the fact that things will happen, but also to trust in myself. To me, these kind of feel the ingredients to where I'm at right now, which I used to say, "I don't do rush anymore. I don't rush." And I know that the counterintuitive truth is whenever things happen and there's so much on our plate, we want to just race towards it. And the truth is actually to pause, creating calm so that then you can race. But it feels so counterintuitive. And the habit is always like, "I'm going to race." And "No, no, no, no. Take a breather." And so to me, returning to calm so that I can actually listen to my intuition, but then I deeply believe that what I want is just waiting for me. And it is just, I know it always feels very simple, not necessarily easy, but it is just a way of me going on the world, being my true self, trusting myself and things will happen.

Tonya Leigh:

There is no hurry. My favorite mantra. Thank you so much, Caroline.

Caroline Lacaille-Gaudy:

Thank you, Tonya.

Tonya Leigh:

Awesome. And listen you all, if you have not joined Live Like an Editor, we are starting really soon. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/editor. We are going to have such a good time over those five days, and I hope you're going to do it with us again this year. Take care.