Episode 22: Don’t Forget To Tell Yourself Good Job

Okay! Welcome to The Work Of Becoming podcast. This is a bit of an impromptu episode because I actually just finished batching 21 episodes of this podcast. So, a full month — actually more than that — of podcast episodes, I just batched all at once. And that’s a lot of podcasts. I’ve been sitting here talking for, like, two-and-a-half hours because there are some that I have recorded more than once. It has been a long road to get here, but I really wanted to get this done today because I really, really wanted to have the whole month done because that is how I like things to be in my life. I like to have, in my business, a month of stuff done ahead of time.

So, I’m literally about to shut my computer down. So, I finished the last episode. I hit stop, and then out loud, instinctively, I said to myself, “Good job, Karin! Good job.” And I wasn’t intending on recording any more podcasts because I did the ones that I was planning to do, but in that moment I was like, “Wow, this is a really important lesson.” So, here’s the question I want to ask you: when is the last time you told yourself, “Good job”? And I don’t mean when’s the last time you felt slight happiness about a behavior you enacted. No, I mean, when is the last time you literally looked at yourself in the mirror or said out loud to yourself, “Good frickin’ job, self. You just did the damn thing”?

This is something that I picked up a couple of years back, and I don’t know where I saw it. I saw it probably on Instagram somewhere that was like, “Don’t forget to tell yourself good job.” And so, what I started doing is after every single workout, I would get in my car, and particularly if the workout was really hard, I would shut my door, and when I was alone in my car, I would say out loud to myself, “Good job, Karin! Good job.” And I’m telling you, you’ve got to try it out because it feels so empowering. And I talk a lot about how having a coach can help you build up this voice in your head that teaches you how to walk yourself through situations and encourage yourself instead of beating yourself up, but this is a really, really easy, very tangible way to start building that voice.

So, this week, when you have a thing on your to-do list that you’ve been putting off and you get it done, or when you do that hard workout, or when you batch something and you’re done with a task that was particularly difficult, or when you’re having a rough day and you manage to get yourself dressed, I want you to look yourself in the mirror, I want you to say out loud, “Good freaking job.” And then I want you to message me on Instagram or tag me on Instagram and tell me how it feels.

So, that is today’s episode. That’s all I’ve got for you. I just wanted to do this kind of impromptu little episode to give you that lesson because it really is so powerful, and it can be such an important tool in developing a relationship with yourself that actually propels you towards the life you want. I will see you in the next one, y’all!