If there’s one thing I learned from breast cancer, it’s that there’s no time to waste on bad books, terrible movies, unfulfilling work, or negative people in this precious short life. 

But there are also too many wonderful experiences, skills to learn, places to see, and amazing people to spend time with to let life go by without intentionally putting energy into the things I love or think I might love. 

And yet we do that all the time. 

We talk ourselves out of trying something new in favor of playing it safe. 

We let opportunities pass us by because we might not like them, we might look like a quitter or a flake, or we might be judged by the other people who are sitting around, letting life pass them by. 

Isn’t it time to change that? 

In this episode, I’ll share the story of my twisted path to figuring out what I loved to do in life, and I’ll share some insights on the most common excuse I hear when it comes to friends, family, and clients talking themselves out of creating the life they might love. 

Listen to hear more about: 

• Why you need to be more comfortable being the most authentic version of yourself. 

• What led me to become a healthy lifestyle coach. 
• Why you don’t have to finish what you’re doing. 
• Getting in touch with the niggling thing inside you that says, “What will happen then?”. 
• The problem is where we hold ourselves back. 
• How to consciously and intentionally decide whether or not something is for you. 

Referred to in this episode: 

Becoming You 2.0 

Read the full transcript below:

Laura Lummer  00:00

You're listening to the breast cancer recovery coach podcast. I'm your host, Laura Lummer. I'm a Certified Life health and nutrition coach, and I'm also a breast cancer thriver. If you're trying to figure out how to move past the trauma and the emotional toll of breast cancer, you've come to the right place. In this podcast, I will give you the tools and the insights to create a life that's even better than before breast cancer. Well, let's get started.

Laura Lummer  00:32

Well, hey, there you are listening to Episode 235 of the breast cancer recovery coach podcast. I'm your host, Laura Lummer. I'm very happy to be here with you today. Before we jump into the show, I also want to remind you that when this show comes out, there will be about one week left for you to have the opportunity to enroll in my becoming you 2.0 program at a price you choose, which is super cool. So in honor of international, well wait, it was International Women's Day, and it's National Women's History Month, to honor all of my beautiful women out there. And all the things you want to create in your life and for yourself. I'm offering this program at a price you get to pick. So what the becoming you 2.0 program has to offer you is a really cool deep exploration into where you're at in your life right now. Why you might be there, if what you're telling yourself is you want to create something. But whenever we want to create something new boy, our brain jumps in full force with all the self doubt and all the reasons why we shouldn't. And because I have coached so many women after breast cancer, who come out of that experience, feeling like there's something burning inside of them, that either doesn't fit and they're not sure why or which way to move forward, or something that they know, they really want to create and have no idea how and are kind of overcome and paralyzed by all of the decisions, all of the fear and all of the self doubt. So becoming you is a program that's eight weeks long. And it's going to walk you through those steps of examining why you are where you are now, where you want to go, who you need to be to get to that place and how you step into that future version of yourself. And it's supported with live coaching from me during my office hours. During that eight weeks that you're in the program, the program is yours for life, but you have access to me to coach you through it and support you as much as possible during those first eight weeks. So go now to the breast cancer recovery coach.com forward slash you like oh, you and decide what an eight week program like that is worth to you. And by it, you will be very, very happy that you did. And you know, kind of in line with the becoming you program. And what I just talked about, I was inspired to do this show because I have had a lot of coachings lately with clients of mine, who even if it's not that they're trying to create something new, some of them are some of them are trying to start a new business. Some of them are trying to start a side gig something of their own. Some of them want to become coaches and want to do the same kind of thing that I'm doing. And some of them just want to be more comfortable being the most authentic version of themselves, that maybe there are things inside of them that they enjoy or want to do, whether it's painting or writing music or teaching, but it doesn't align with where their career is. Now, it's not something that they have figured out how to fit into their lives before. And there's a lot of fear around stepping into that. And creating that in their life creating the kind of life they want to live. And some of the big reasons for that are what I'm going to talk about in this show and hopefully help you through it also. So that if you find yourself in that place, if you find yourself holding in suppressing or holding back from something you really want to do, maybe if it's even to just learn more about it to check it out to see if maybe you want to do it. But you still don't go there. I want to talk about that this week. And some of the biggest reasons why we don't do that. Or because we are afraid people will think we're flaky. So I was coaching someone this past week. And she wants to start an exercise program. And she doesn't want to talk to anybody about it. Because she's afraid that they might think she's flaky. She's afraid they might think, oh yeah, you've tried to do this in the past and it's never worked and you're going to fail. And I'm going to talk about that and why we think that and what the really true thought we're not getting to is when we tell ourselves that story. But first I want to talk to you about my own story I want share this with you. Because oftentimes when I'm coaching clients, I'll have them say like, I want to be like you, I want to do what you do. Or how come you How did you figure out how to get everything together, you know how to do what you're doing. And I want to share my story with you and my pathway with you because it is anything but a straight arrow, right? So I'm gonna go all the way back to when I first decided to go to college. And I wanted to be an attorney, because I thought attorneys were all about debate. And I love to good debate. And I love the challenge, and I love to win. So I went to school, and I studied pre law. And I don't know why it was, but I got drawn into towards an estate planning, and I started studying that. And then I started studying case law, you get to explore several different areas of law when you go into pre law. And I realized that what I saw in the movies wasn't really an accurate portrayal of what it meant to be a lawyer. And there was a ton of paperwork and research. And that just didn't resonate with me. That wasn't what I wanted to do. And the more I talked to professors who did that, and the more I asked about what they did, and the more I read about what that profession involved, and the more I saw the hours because I had very young children at the time I was in my early 20s When I went back to college, and so I had little kids. And I thought I don't want to work 100 hours a week, and I want to be with my kids. Now at that time, computers were becoming all the rage. And so that was back in, you know, the early mid 1980s, the late 1980s. And I thought, well, computers are the way to go. And computers were like a puzzle, right? You could build computers. And that was back when you know we had floppy disks. And maybe we didn't even have floppy disks yet at that time. But we could we were just learning how about how to build computer networks, and learning C plus and computer language programming, how to write in code. There were still you know, dos printers and things like that. And I thought you know what, that's fascinating figuring out all of that stuff and learning how to do it and put together computers and build a computer. That sounds really cool. Sounds like a puzzle. And I love a good puzzle. So I decided computer science was what I was going to do. And I switched over to computer science. And I loved computer science. And I did learn how to build a computer from the ground up. And I did learn all the details about motherboards and computer language. And I started studying HTML and I loved it. What I didn't love was what I discovered about the actual profession, and how what my job would actually look like if I moved into this industry, which was mostly behind the scenes, tech support, hours and hours of dealing with very frustrated people who didn't study it and understand it the way that I did. And then I started noticing the other people that were in my class who are also drawn to this subject. And a lot of them are not real personable. A lot of them were very, I just want to say introverted, but very inwardly focused. And I started to realize that they just weren't a real fun group of people to hang out with. And I thought, Hmm, this isn't for me, this isn't what I want. And one of my other passions in life has always been health and nutrition. And so I thought, You know what, I love diet and exercise. I love food. I love love. I love to cook, I love to bake, I love to learn about eating and how food nourishes our body. I'm going to study food science, because I had a lot of science credits at this time. And I didn't want to start over, I'm going to move to food science. And so I started to study food science, and I loved what I was learning. I loved understanding what was happening from farm to table. I loved understanding what was going on with our food and in the food industry and what animal husbandry actually look like and what farming actually looked like. And that means not just the process of growing food, but the politics that were involved in it. And then the manufacturing part of the food. I thought it was fascinating. But the food science degree was leading to a job. That was not the job I wanted. I didn't want to work in creating fake food. I wanted to help people understand the beauty and the value and the role that food played in our world in our lives and in our health. and food science was more about Franken foods now was not what I wanted to be a part of. So then I realized, well, I know it's dietetics. Okay? Are you are you just kind of going like what of flakes seriously, like pick something? Well, that's why I'm sharing this story with you. So I started studying dietetics. And I loved what I was learning. And I loved learning about nutrition and its impact on our health. And I loved organic chemistry, I loved cellular biology. But I didn't love the idea that I would end up in a clinical environment, because let's remember, that wasn't today 2023, where people can start Integrative Nutrition programs and coaching and internet, this was not happening then. And so I was looking at doing a lot of clinical hours, and working in a hospital or medical setting. And I didn't really want to work with sick people. I wanted to work with people who wanted to be healthy. And so I stopped studying dietetics. And I thought, I don't know what I want to do. I can't figure it out. And I went on hiatus and just monde and worked and whatever for a while, I tried to figure it out. And then finally, because I kept going back, I had all these credits, I invested all of this money in degree programs, and I hadn't yet completed a degree. And I thought, come on, I only have a little ways to go. I've gotten to finish this. And I would look and I would look all the time to see if something spoke to me. And finally, one day I did. Finally one day, I came across a Health Sciences healthy lifestyle coaching Bachelor of Science degree program. And it spoke to me that was it I was in. It was a combination of Exercise Science, which I loved. I was already a personal trainer and a yoga teacher, I had already studied Ayurveda. So it was all about nutrition science, behavior change, and Exercise Science was all the things I absolutely loved. And I led to a profession that I wanted. It led to me being able to be a life coach, a healthy lifestyle coach, and working with people who really wanted to be invested in creating healthier lives for themselves. And I had had breast cancer. So what could be more important, right? So I had all the things came together. And I was already 50 years old. And by this time, yeah, I was 50 years old. When I walked across that stage and got my degree, my kids flew to out to Arizona with me because I graduated from Arizona State University. And I have no regrets about any of it. I don't look back at my life and say what a flake. I don't regret the fact that I didn't, well, I would love to have had the opportunity to be the coach that I am now, when I was in my early 20s. But that wasn't the world I lived in. That wasn't how things were and the things that I was exploring. They just, they sounded good at first. And when I dug into them and explored them, they just weren't the right fit. They weren't what I wanted. And I'm not the kind of person who sticks with things that I don't like, and a lot of people do. A lot of people say, oh, you know, if I start that I have to finish it. And that's part of the problem that I see, with women wanting to change something in their life wanting to start something wanting to explore something new. Because we have this story that if I start it, I have to finish it. And I'm not sure I'll like it. And so I want to tell you right now that you don't have to finish it. That's just a story. It's just a thought. When we go out to explore something new, it's like dating. So it'd be like saying, Oh, the first person I date I have to marry therefore I'd never date because maybe I won't like them. That's why we date right? To find the person that we really like. So when we're exploring life, it's kind of the same thing. We get to get the sampler box, we get to sample things. And we get to look for the thing that really resonates with us. Recently, while I was coaching somebody, we were talking about a business that she wants to create. And she was saying, well, I could do this thing that I know or this thing that I really love.

Laura Lummer  14:30

What do you think I encourage you to do? Do what you love, do what lights you up? Do it sounds exciting, fun, adventurous. So let me go back and touch on what I said earlier, this belief that if I try it, and I don't like it and I don't finish it, people will think I'm flaky. Or I've tried a few things in the past that I haven't finished if I try something new people will say and kind of flaky, people will think I won't finish. People will say, Oh, again, you're doing something again, oh, something new. We'll see. And, as I just shared with you, if I would have thought that with my story, I would have never even gotten back to school to finish the degree, I've never gone back to the different certification programs that I've done and completed. But more importantly, when we tell ourselves that story, I can't do that, or I don't want to do that, because I don't want to look this way to other people. That is really a red herring. You know, that thought, right? There is really a buffer because underneath it, I bet if you explore enough of what it is you want to create in your life, but you don't take the steps toward doing it. Because you're concerned that other people might judge you or think you're flaky. When the truth is, you're afraid of doing it for yourself. You have a story attached to starting something and not finishing it, to trying something and not liking it and quitting quitter boy that has a lot of stories behind it, doesn't it? I'd be a quitter. But what if you didn't even approach it with the idea that I have to finish? What if you approach something with the idea that I just want to check it out? And if I don't like it? I'm not gonna say, right, then are you a quitter? Or did you do what you set out to do. And when you really dig into it that way, you can see that creating life exploring new modes of education, more creative outlets, more ways of being your authentic self, they may be different from what you've done in the past. And other people may take some time to be able to process it and get on board with you. But that's okay. Because you get to decide what you want to check out, you get to decide what sounds appealing to you in life. And oftentimes, the things that sound appealing, aren't exactly what you think once you get into them, as again, I just shared with you in the story of my pursuit of a degree. That's just one area of life where I started and I stopped things I can think of lots of other things that I started and I stopped because they weren't what I was hoping they would be. And I don't want to do something I don't enjoy who does. But if you're in your life, right now, realizing, I'm doing something that doesn't really light me up, I'm doing something I don't look forward to. I'm feeling stagnant, or I'm feeling stuck. Because I really want to explore this thing, whatever it is, even if it's just a small change you want to make in your life, something new, you want to learn, but you don't do it. Because of what other people think. My suggestion is get out of pencil and paper and really explore those thoughts. Because underneath what other people think, are your own fears. They're your own self doubt. Am I able to do it? Will I be any good at it? What will be the point of it? What if I fail at it? What if I succeed at it? What if I'm really good at it? And then what will happen? Then what will I have to do? We have so many thoughts that get way far ahead of us that go way out into the future. And before we've ever started something, these thoughts have already convinced us that it won't be good, or it'll be so good that you won't know how to manage all the new celebrity status. And so you just don't do it at all. And then we're left feeling stuck. feeling unfulfilled feeling like, we haven't really gotten in touch and I don't want to say purpose with the capital P like everybody has to have this giant purpose in life. But getting in touch with that niggling thing inside of you that says, that would really be fun. Or that might really be cool. Or I would really love to do that. I remember somebody saying to me many years ago, it's like the Volkswagen bus theory. A Volkswagen bus always looks so cool, doesn't it? Especially here in California because VW bus is kind of associated with, you know, surfing and going to the beach, and you have surf for X on top and P signs painted on the side. But the reality of a VW bus is really not as great as the fantasy of one because you get in a VW bus and they don't drive real smooth, and they break down all the time and they're just not as comfortable as you think they might be. And that happens a lot with things in life. Sometimes in life, things just are better in fantasy than they are in reality, but you never know until you jump in and you try it out. I know that a huge rage now and I have several friends who love pickleball Pickleball is this new thing and everything was like oh my god pickleball It's fabulous. It's so fun. But what have you here? about pickleball. And you think, Well, I'm not going to be any good at that. I never play tennis. I don't think I'd be good at it. And you never tried and you never found out how much fun it could be. How many more new friends you can make how many more social circles you can get into? What have you thought about writing a short story, and you have no idea how to start a book. So you take a masterclass. And you listen to people who give you the first steps how to write a book, what if you just check it out? And then you think, yeah, I don't think this is really what I thought it was going to be. Because come on in the fantasy of being a book, Arthur, a book author, with a New York Times bestseller sounds wonderful. But it's actually a tremendous amount of work. I know people who've done it, and it is an insane amount of work, right? Maybe you're not willing to put that much work into it when you figure it out. And that is okay. The part that becomes the problem is where we hold ourselves back, because of all the thoughts and all the self judgment and all the fear of other people's judgments. If we don't follow the straight and narrow, if we deviate from what we've already created, if we try something new, again, that we might not finish. And so we find ourselves saying, I just want to feel normal again, I just want to go back to normal. I just want things to be easy. I just want things to be comfortable. And the truth is that they're not comfortable. When there's something inside of you a little voice inside of you. That is saying try this, do this, learn that go there. Move out of your comfort zone a little bit, take the risk. See if it's fun, and you don't do it, then you're not really comfortable, right? Because you're always wrestling with that little voice that's inside of you. With that little feeling that's inside of you. It's there niggling. So oftentimes, we'll just go to the freezer and get out the Ben and Jerry's, see if we can't quiet that voice down, will buffer with other things. And so we actually live in discomfort, because of the fear of stepping into discomfort. But the discomfort we choose to live in gives us results that we don't really like. And we've been through too much, my friends, to keep doing things to ourselves that we don't really like the results of right, so much better to give it a shot. And consciously and intentionally decide whether or not something is for you. Because we can never undo that learning experience. I can still tell you a lot of stuff about a computer, I can still explain farming practices and food manufacturing practices. It's not like the knowledge that I got is wasted. It's always mine. And it's always valuable. But the end result of that knowledge was something that I chose not to do. So as you move forward in your life, whether you are newly out of treatment, whether you are years out of treatment. Here's another one that I hear, isn't it too late? Am I not too old. So whether you are 50 or 60, or 70, as long as you are still taking breaths, then it's not too late to do something you love, right? We don't want to wait around till we take our last breath. We want to make everything between now in that last breath count, and be as joyful as it can possibly be. All right, and it's up to you to step into it. And if you want help stepping into it, go over to the breast cancer recovery coach.com forward slash you and jump into the becoming you program and I will be there to coach you along the way. All right. Take care my friends and I'll talk to you again next week. Until then be very good to yourself.

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