Sauntering Beyond Your Limits

Have you ever felt like you're constantly running on a treadmill chasing after your goals, but never quite catching your breath? Well, what if I told you that there is a way to achieve your dreams without burning yourself out, a way that's not only effective but actually enjoyable? Today we are going to explore the art of Sauntering Beyond Your Limits, a very powerful approach that combines ambition with ease and playfulness with purpose. So take a deep breath and 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 friends. Welcome to another week of the podcast. How have you been? I have had a very full week. It seems like we've had a revolving door of company coming to stay with us. My dad is sick and so I've been going back and forth to spend time with him and my mom, and we have a lot of exciting things going on within the School of Self-Image that will be revealed very soon. But I was thinking the other day of how I feel overall and quite honestly, I feel very grateful for so many things. And even though a lot's going on, I'm relatively calm right now, and I think it has to do with what today's episode is all about, sauntering beyond your limits, because we live in a world that's always telling us to push harder, go faster, do more. It's all hustle culture and no pain, no gain, and I have found myself in the past wondering, "How can I keep up?" Maybe you felt the same way.

Years ago, I remember very clearly the day when I had the question, how do you combine ambition with ease? That's when it hit me, the image of sauntering towards my goals and sauntering beyond my limits. Now, what I want you to do is I want you to close your eyes for a second if you can, if you're driving or out for a walk, don't. But if you're in a place where you can close your eyes, I want you to imagine yourself just walking with purpose but unhurried, you're playful, yet focused, you are curious, yet determined, and I want you to really see yourself in that energy because that is the energy of sauntering, my friends. If you look up the word saunter, it means to walk leisurely and within that leisurely walk, there is curiosity. There's often a sense of awe. There's often a sense of playfulness, and it's definitely an unhurried energy, and I've been playing with this concept for almost two decades now, and let me tell you, it has been a game changer.

And here's the little secret. Whenever I have found myself out of what I call my sweet spot, it's usually because I've stopped sauntering and I've started sprinting. Now, I want to be clear that I understand that there are seasons when you intentionally sprint and that sprint is driven out of passion, out of excitement, out of commitment, but all too often we stay in that mode and if we pay attention, we'll realize, wow, it's no longer being driven out of positive emotion, it's being driven out of fear, out of anxiety, out of worry, and that is a pace that's impossible to keep up. What I've also discovered is that with intention and with some of the principles that I'm going to talk about in this episode, your sprints can start to feel more like a saunter. And here's where it gets really interesting. What happens when you encounter a limit or an obstacle while sauntering? Really think about it. If you're out for a leisurely stroll through a beautiful garden and you're admiring the flowers, feeling the breeze on your skin and suddenly, bam, you encounter a wall in front of you.

Now, first of all, if you were sprinting, you might get a little bruised up, you might crash right into it and you will feel defeated. But when you're sauntering, that's a different story. When you hit a wall and you're sauntering, you first of all have the presence of mind to stop and really look at it. You might not even hit it because you have the awareness to see it right before you're upon it. But when you get to it, you'll start to ask questions like, is it really as solid as it seems? Are there any cracks or maybe there's a door you didn't notice, or perhaps you can simply walk around it. You see, when you're sauntering, you approach your limits with curiosity rather than frustration. You may ask yourself, "What can I learn from this obstacle? How can I work with it rather than against it?" It's not about bulldozing through your limit, but rather about dancing with it, exploring it, and gently expanding it.

I remember when I first started my business, I hit a wall when it came to public speaking, it was definitely an upper limit. And quite honestly, the thought of standing on a stage made my knees weak. In fact, one of the very first talks I gave, literally I was shaking so bad I had to request a chair. I thought I was about to pass out, and I realized that maybe there was a different approach. So from that experience, I started to saunter towards being a speaker. And what that looked like for me is I started just speaking to small groups of friends about the topics I was passionate about, and then I moved to larger groups and I played with different speaking styles until I found one that felt truly authentic to me. And eventually before I knew it, I was standing on stages sharing my message with hundreds of people and actually enjoying it.

To me, that's what sauntering beyond your limits can feel like. It's not about ignoring your limitations or pretending they don't exist. It's about acknowledging them, respecting them, and gently, playfully and curiously expanding them. It's about realizing that most limits are not brick walls, but rather rubber bands that can stretch and grow as we do. Now, think about this, think about sauntering beyond your limits being like climbing a beautiful mountain, you're not racing to the top. Instead, you're taking your time to rest when you need it, you're stopping to enjoy the scenery and maybe snapping a mental picture or two. And yes, there will be moments when you think you can't make it, especially if that peak is taller than anything you've climbed before.

But here's the magic. What you may not realize is that with each step you're getting stronger, more capable. You're literally sauntering beyond what you thought were your limits. So how do you bring the sauntering energy into your daily life? Well, I've got a few ideas for you. First, I want you to think about playful exploration. As kids, we approached everything with curiosity and playfulness, but somewhere along the way, we got the message that being an adult means being serious all the time. We've forgotten how to play, but a lot of successful people in the world have become successful because of their playful approaches to overcoming their limitations.

I think about the story of Dr. Spencer Silver at 3M. He was trying to create a super strong adhesive, but instead he accidentally created a very weak one. Think about it. He could have gotten very frustrated and given up, but instead he started to play with the idea and he wondered, "What if we actually need a weak adhesive sometimes?" And that playful curious exploration, actually led him to invent the Post-it Notes. So sometimes our failures can lead to our biggest breakthroughs if we approach them with a sense of curiosity and play.

One of the things that I have found to be very helpful when I am hitting up against an upper limit or I'm struggling with an obstacle is to get my creativity going by coming up with just silly solutions. Next time you're overwhelmed with something and you're trying to figure something out, just take a deep breath and then brainstorm the most ridiculous over the top solutions that you can imagine. I remember there was a time where I was really struggling to declutter. It was a big limit for me. It was an upper limit and obstacle, and I thought, "Wouldn't it be fun to host a reverse birthday party where when people came over, instead of bringing you something, they all had to take 10 things out of your house." That was their gift to you, removing 10 things from your house to make it less cluttered.

If you want to exercise more, you could create a dance floor pathway from your bedroom to your kitchen so that every time you walk in that direction on that path, you have to dance your way to the kitchen. Or I did this one one time, I was in a habit of procrastinating. It was definitely a limit for me, and I just remember imagining every time I procrastinate at my desk that my desk chair just starts to sink into the floor, and so if I don't get to work, it's just going to keep sinking. I know it's so silly, but it's just a fun way to think about creative solutions. It's not that you have to do any of them, but it is lightening up a little bit. It's looking for all kinds of creative ways to deal with life's problems.

So what is a challenge that you're facing right now? Maybe the challenge is you can't stop overeating. Maybe the challenge is you're having a difficult time growing your social media following. Maybe you're having a difficult time attracting a partner. Come up with some fun, playful, silly solutions that will get your brain working in a creative way and inject some playfulness and into your problem solving. And remember what Plato said, "You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation." So why not discover something new about yourself through play? That is the essence of sauntering beyond your limits.

Now, I want to talk about the art of gentle persistence. This is all about sauntering towards your goals instead of rushing or forcing progress. It's acknowledging that sustainable growth often happens slowly and consistently. Think about it like this. Have you ever tried to force a flower to bloom? It doesn't work, does it? But with consistent care, sunlight, water, and patience, it opens up in its own time and you can apply the same principle to your own growth. Instead of trying to overhaul your entire life overnight, what if you committed to moving one small pebble towards your goal each day? This could be as simple as writing one paragraph of that book you've been dreaming about, doing one push-up if you're working on your fitness, or making one business call if you're trying to grow your network, I call this the Daily Pebble, and it's been a game changer for me. It takes something that may feel really big and it makes it doable. It takes the pressure off, and it allows me and hopefully you to make progress without burning out. Remember, we're sauntering here. We're not sprinting.

I think about what Winnie the Pooh said, "Rivers know this. There is no hurry. We shall get there someday," and you will too. One gentle step at a time. Now, here's something that ties all of this together. To truly saunter beyond your limits, you must practice detaching from the outcome. I know, it sounds counterintuitive. We're so used to fixating on results, on crossing that finish line, on achieving that thing. But here's the thing. When you're too attached to the outcome, you miss the magic of the journey, and you're always in a state of not being there yet. And reminding yourself day after day of not being there yet starts to concern and scarcity and frustration and a lack of patience.

I think back to many years ago when I decided I wanted to run a marathon, I was all about that end result, crossing that finish line, hopefully getting a medal, and I pushed myself hard. I ignored my body, and guess what? I injured myself before I even got to the starting line. I was so focused on the destination that I missed out on, the joy and growth that was happening along the way. So I decided to saunter towards my marathon. I shifted my perspective and I set a new goal. And that goal was to enjoy the process of becoming a runner by detaching from the outcome of a specific distance or time.

What I did is I just started to focus on the daily act of getting outside and going for a run. And you know what happened? Not only did I start to love running, but I eventually completed that marathon and went on to run a second one. And I actually enjoyed the process. Sure I was running, but it felt like the energy of a saunter simply by changing my approach and not being so attached to running it in a certain time, but just enjoying the process of becoming a runner. One thing you can do, I think this is a really fun exercise, is to write down one thing every day that you've enjoyed while working towards your goal. No matter how small.

Maybe you loved the feeling of the sun on your face when you went out for a run, or the satisfaction you felt when you solved a tricky problem at work, do this every day for a month and at the end of the month read through all of your answers and you'll start to see that the joy is in the journey all along. It's not in the destination. Of course, it feels great to reach goals, but it truly is who you become in the process and really just savoring the growth that you experience when you stop being so attached to the outcome and just appreciate the daily journey of sauntering towards your goals.

What I have discovered is that when I detach from the outcome, I actually open myself up to possibilities that I couldn't have imagined. I've become more resilient, more creative, and ironically, I've often achieved more than I initially set out to do. It feels like you are dancing with life rather than wrestling with it. Now, I know that this is easier said than done. Our brain, it tries to convince us that the joy is going to happen when we get there, but what I also know is, if you make yourself miserable towards obtaining that goal, you're not going to enjoy achieving it as much as you think. So the way to actually do this is what I work a lot with School of Self-Image members on, and that is to have the goals, have that ambition. It's there for a reason and it is a beautiful thing, but bring it back to your daily life and fall in love with the process. If you're just attached to the outcome, you are not going to enjoy the process, but when you enjoy the process, you are much more likely to achieve that outcome.

Now, we can also turn to nature to learn a thing or two about sauntering towards our goals because if you've noticed, nature doesn't rush yet, everything gets accomplished. Have you ever really watched a tree grow? Depending on the tree, it's a very slow process, but the results are magnificent. I've always been just fascinated with the bamboo tree because for the first few years after it's planted, you see no visible growth above the ground. But what you don't see is that during this time, it's developing this extensive root system. Then almost overnight, it can grow up to 80 feet in just 6 weeks. And I think that this is often how our personal growth works. We might feel like we're not making much progress, but beneath the service, if you are committed to the process, if you're sauntering towards your goals and beyond your limits, what you're doing is you're developing the roots that will support your future growth.

I've experienced my own bamboo-like growth in many areas of my life. One being with my business. I think back to when I first started my business and I had a newsletter that I would send out every single week like clockwork. And in the beginning it was just my mom and dad reading it. I didn't have a lot of email subscribers at all, and they would trickle in, but for the longest time, it felt like nothing was really happening. But I kept at it. I focused on the process, not the outcome. I focused on providing value, on creating really great content, on connecting with my readers, on being consistent. And then right around, I think it was like the two-year mark, I don't know what happened, but it was incredible. It was like exponential growth. It was like the bamboo tree. It felt like overnight it started to multiply. All that work, all that consistency, all that patience, it paid off in ways I couldn't have imagined. And it's led to where I am today.

Sometimes people look at me today and they're like, "You're so lucky." They don't realize I've been doing this for almost 20 years. Being consistent, showing up, providing value, failing in the process, having my obstacles, being playful, trying to figure it out, sauntering beyond my own limits. Next time you're out in nature, just spend some time observing a natural object. It could be a tree, a flower, or even a landscape could be a river, whatever. And just think about how the characteristics of that object and think about how it mirrors your own growth journey. If it's a river, maybe all of the twists and turns reflect all of the twists and turns that you've had in your life. If it's a tree, maybe you're thinking about the growth rings inside of it and how it relates to all of your own layers of experience that you've had over the years. As Alice Walker, beautifully said, "In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they're still beautiful." And the same is true for your journey. It doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful.

Now, one last recommendation for sauntering beyond your limits is to create what I call microadventures. These are small, achievable challenges that gradually expand your comfort zone. They're like practice runs for sauntering beyond your limits. I just have found in my own life, it's been these little stretches, these little, going a little bit beyond what I thought I could do, trying something a little bit beyond my comfort zone that over time has grown me the most. And the crazy thing is, when you're doing it, it doesn't seem like a lot. You stretch a little bit, but not a lot. But imagine those little stretches over time. You literally become a whole new person.

And some people will tell you, "Really put yourself out there. Really put yourself on stages and pass out. You'll be okay." And of course you will. But I'm suggesting that maybe there's a more gentle approach where we don't make our nervous systems freak out quite so much, but we gradually expand our comfort zones. So each week I want you to just do something that's slightly outside of your comfort zone. It doesn't have to be big. It might be trying a new cuisine, or taking a different route to work, or striking up a conversation with a stranger. These small steps can lead to big changes in how you see yourself and what you believe is possible.

Now, speaking of micro adventures, I have something exciting for you. I'm so excited about this. I want to challenge you to expand your style limits, and that is why I have created a free five day style challenge. I just filmed this a few weeks ago. My team flew in, we filmed it in my closet. We laughed so hard. We had so much fun. And it's all about expanding beyond what you think might be possible with style. These are timeless principles presented in easy, doable steps that will elevate your style. And it's not about following trends or conforming to someone else's idea of fashion.

In fact, when I was creating this challenge, because I've done style challenges before that, quite frankly, I couldn't relate to. They were saying like, "Today, pair of polka dots with stripes." And I'm like, "Well, I don't have polka dots. It's not my style." I created this style challenge very purposefully that no matter what your style is, you may be classic, you may be a minimalist, you might be edgy, you might be dramatic, it doesn't matter. These style principles are applicable to everyone, and they're the exact principles that I have used to elevate my own style. This is about discovering and expressing your unique self through personal style.

And each day, I'm going to give you a little micro adventure, a small, manageable task that will gently hopefully push you outside of your style comfort zone just a little bit. It is going to be so much fun. Because remember, style isn't just about clothes. It is a form of self-expression, a way of showing the world who you are without saying a word. So by expanding your style limits, you're also expanding your self image and your confidence. And the best part, you'll be doing it in a supportive community of like-minded women. We are all sauntering towards a more stylish, confident version of ourselves.

So to join the five day free style adventure, all you have to do is go to schoolofselfimage.com/stylechallenge. It is completely free, and I promise you it's going to be fun, enlightning and maybe even a little bit life changing. There's a great quote by John Amott where he said, "Adventure hanging on a rope off the side of a mountain. Adventure is an attitude that we must apply to the day-to-day obstacles in life." And sometimes that adventure can start right in your own closet. So make sure you join us for the free five day Style Challenge. And as we wrap up this episode, I want you to remember this. You have the power to saunter beyond your limits. You can be ambitious and enjoy your life. You can make progress without burning out. You're capable of so much more than you know.

The next time you encounter a limit in your life, I want you to imagine yourself sauntering up to it. You're not trying to run through it. You're also not running away from it. You are simply sauntering up to it. Take a deep breath and get curious. Ask yourself, "How can I play with this limit? How can I gently stretch it? How can I have fun with this limit?" And you might be surprised at how much give those limits really have when you approach them with the energy of a saunter. And remember, it's not about the destination, it's about the dance. Detach from the outcome and you'll find so much freedom that you didn't even know existed, and you'll probably find that you're able to achieve your goals faster.

So take a deep breath, fill your feet on the ground and take that next step. Not a sprint, not a leap, but a saunter. And trust me, the view from the top of the mountain is so worth it, especially, this is very important, especially when you've enjoyed the journey along the way. So until next week, keep sauntering my friends, and I will see you on the next episode. Cheers.