Mental Wealth : How I Choose to Mentally Invest in Myself.
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Ok, I am the ultimate struggle bus when it comes to mental chatter, negative self-talk, and being my worst enemy.
I will flat out say it. I am the worst!
Blame it on my upbringing - because who doesn’t blame their issues on their childhood? But I grew up with a few figures in my life that constantly told me how unworthy I was as a kid. (We can dive into the past later… but this post is all about moving forward!)
So during this quarantine, I have been actively practicing my “mental wealth”. This is a term I use to tell myself that my mental wellbeing is an investment that I need to be contributing to just like anything else in my life (business, relationships…etc.).
So let’s chat about it.
I thought that in order to be successful I would need to just follow the rules, journeys, advice, and guidelines from other previously successful entrepreneurs.
I would hire a coach - I would educate myself - I would do all the things necessary to be successful.
But I left out one incredibly crucial factor…
(Hang on, this may get corny.)
Believing in myself.
You heard it first - This is not Disney Channel. This is my blog. But yes, you need to believe in yourself.
So what does that actually mean though?
It means not being insecure in what you are doing. It means believing full-heartedly that YOU ARE CAPABLE. It means not falling into a downward mental self-pity spiral when something doesn’t work out, go your way, or even when a client turns you down.
Your mental wealth is ESSENTIAL to your success.
Honestly, all of this took almost 3 years for me to learn! THREE-EFFING-YEARS. Before, I thought I was just lacking confidence or bad at my job.
NOPE.
People could tell I struggled in believing in my own work and success, and therefore, it made them feel uneasy or left them feeling unsure about what I was offering them.
So after this fantastic realization, I started investigating what was going on inside.
I came to realize that I was sabotaging all my success because I wasn’t taking care of my mental wealth.
Anxious feelings of unworthiness, feeling like a fraud, mentally beating myself up in order to motivate me to work harder in my business like some sort of sick punishment and calling it “discipline.” All these things and more were what I was putting myself through on a daily basis.
Even right down to negatively looking at my physical appearance and my relationships with my loved ones - I was a total jerk to myself.
And all because I wasn’t achieving “success” in my mind or the way I thought I was supposed to.
So here’s the reality check.
There are four reminders and practices that I use to help me get through these negative behaviors and get me back on track to creating a healthy and loving mental mindset.
Success is RELATIVE
What I mean is that success looks different to everyone. Some think success is being a billionaire…others see it as being able to get out of bed in the morning. Success is not defined by one narrative - it is determined on how we value specific moments or achievements in our own lives. SO.
DO. NOT. COMPARE. OTHERS’. SUCCESSES. TO. YOUR. OWN. ACHIEVEMENTS.
How can you congratulate and celebrate your own achievement when you are busy coveting someone else’s? Your journey is vastly different from theirs. Your struggles are wildly incomparable to the next persons. You have to determine what achievements in your own life are your “successes” and then f*cking celebrate them! Pop some damn champagne. Look in the mirror and tell yourself how proud you are of yourself! Go out to a super fancy restaurant by yourself just because you deserve it! But DO NOT lessen your success or beat yourself up after you achieved something just because you are comparing yourself to someone else’s successful achievement. It’s not fair to you and it will get you nowhere.
Practice Daily
This is tricky. No one is their own biggest fan 100% of the time. But in a perfect world - we all should be. Mental wealth takes practice. It takes time to fall in love with yourself and learn to take care of your mental wellbeing. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, negative self-talk or something else - it’s fucking hard to break down the walls we have built up as coping mechanisms to seemingly protect ourselves. But I will tell you this from my personal experience - it gets easier. Not all at once, but it does get easier.
Personally, I think journaling and prayer have helped me the most. Journaling actually allows me to physically see my mental progress - which for me makes me feel like I am achieving something. It helps me to verbalize the negative thinking and have more control over it. When you can break something down or recognize a behavior - it gets easier to be able to call it out when it happens again. Therefore, I practice positive self-talk, journaling, meditation (I use Headspace at night to calm my mental chatter and negative self-thinking - also I have a full bedtime routine and favorite products to help set the sleep mood) and prayer. Prayer is also huge for me. Praying daily gives me peace and helps me to know that there is a major purpose for my life. Check out Headspace + this journal if you are looking for something to help you practice daily.
*These are not ads, nor am I getting paid for these mentions - this is simply what I use daily to help practice my mental wealth*
Fall in love with YOU
I have this amazing best friend. No - like - She is the sh*t. She is the coolest person I have ever met on top of being the most fun person I have ever met. She’s smart, beautiful, happy, successful and just an all-around amazing human being. If you ever met Molly, you know exactly what I am talking about. She’s one of those girls that even if you tried to dislike her, you would still love her at your core. She’s just the best.
Molly has doubled as my friend, sister, mother, business partner and so much more over the last few years. But the one thing Molly has taught me more so than anything else - is how to fucking love how awesome you are.
Pure - unadulterated - no fluff - blinding self LOVE.
She could very well be related to Lizzo and it would not at all surprise me.
Molly encompasses self-love daily. Not because she is arrogant or narcissistic, but because at one point in her past, Molly was the only one she could count on. She was the ONLY person that was going to provide for her, take care of her, help her, and LOVE her. She had no other choice. So she picked herself up and starting loving each and every thing about herself. And she continues to do this today.
She is obviously an inspiration to me for many reasons, but the biggest reason is that Molly saw in me, I think, what she saw in herself. She saw someone that was dealing with not understanding how to love themselves, but wanting to create a loving life for themselves.
I learned to fall in love with Whitney Eckis from Molly. I learned that I was the bee’s knees, the cat’s meow, the fucking it-girl, from Molly. She echoed the great things about me by communicating them with me and sharing with me the way in which she viewed herself.
Falling in love with yourself is not a one-time thing. It is a constant relationship that you have to work at every single moment. It requires actively walking through life acknowledging who you are at your core and learning to love the things that make you, YOU. I still struggle with this because I am a huge believer in self-improvement. And I would be lying to you if I told you that I didn’t change everything about myself I didn’t like. I did and will continue to change the things about myself I don’t love. But that’s my journey and that is who I am at my core. However, I practice loving myself moment to moment. I practice it through kindness, patience, and forgiveness. I try to treat myself like the way Molly treats me. Like my biggest, loving best friend and cheerleader! I practice rooting for myself and being my own biggest fan! Even when there are times I really really REALLY don’t like who I am - I still am encouraging myself and being the friend that I would want to have in that situation.
The Past is the Past
My childhood was unlike any other childhood. And same goes for anyone else on this planet. We all have ghosts that like to haunt us at the worst times possible. The past is difficult because although it makes us who we are, it also can hurt like hell and instill some not-so-great behaviors in our current lifestyles. Overcoming whatever you have gone through (even if you haven’t gone through “anything”) can be, and I say this as politely as possible, a mental mind-f*ck.
Whether you lived through pain, have been the one that was the reason for causing pain, or any other hard circumstance, you have to make peace with your past. Whether it is letting it go, forgiveness, or making amends with it - you have to let the past be the past and have your peace with it. I say this because someone very close to me lets the past be her demon on the daily. She relives it and gives up/in every single day. My heart breaks for her and I watch her continue in her daily spiral from afar knowing that as much as I want to help her, she actively chooses to be in this dark place. It brings me tears even writing this out because it is still hard for me to cope with…BUT, this is why I choose to not only better my mental wealth, but why I am choosing to even share this in the first place.
Let the past be the past. It is ok to have baggage. It is ok to have trauma. It is ok to feel like there is something wrong with you because I guarantee there is someone else out there who is dealing with similar, if not the same feelings! But what we cannot do is let those past memories dictate or control who we are and how we love ourselves today. It is not easy and it will not happen overnight, but making peace with your past can help you to move forward in your journey of loving who you are and where you are at in life.
This was a heavier and deeper post. I am sure it may have rocked some of you back onto your heels. It certainly rocked me while writing it out for others to read for the first time.
But mental wealth is a thing. Whether you choose to accept it or not - that’s your choice.
I choose to practice it because it not only affects my career success, but it affects me personally on a daily basis. I choose to actively practice this because I want to be strong mentally. I want to learn how to fully trust myself and feel secure in my mind. I practice because I see the woman that actively chooses not to practice mental wealth and how dark of a place she is living in. I practice it because I want to make my best friend, my family, my future kids, and MYSELF proud.
If you are struggling or need to talk to someone I have linked a few amazing resources below. I am also here to chat always. I am not an expert nor am I licensed therapist, but I am always up for being someone’s friend.
