I recorded this episode on my youngest son’s birthday, and I found myself thinking about the milestones of life and all of the small accomplishments that lay between those milestones. Life is a journey of emotions, pain, joy, and countless changes and lessons.  

And I have found that it’s too easy to slip into recalling the shameful moments or the bad decisions. 

But if we can put some effort into embracing and celebrating all the wins along the way, we can build an even more amazing future. 

So why is it so hard to own the results you create and celebrate yourself and your accomplishments? 

Check out this episode to hear more about: 

• 🎉 Celebrating your achievements: Often, we minimize or ignore our accomplishments. Whether it's cultural conditioning or imposter syndrome, it's crucial we recognize and embrace our achievements, not just for ourselves but to inspire and empower others. 
• 💪 The empowerment in embracing results: It's all about changing our mindset. By truly owning our achievements and not downplaying them, we become more confident and able to push past barriers. Remember, it's not about showing off or trying to one-up someone. It's about genuinely celebrating ourselves and our growth. 
• 🚺 The gender bias: Historically, women's achievements have often been overshadowed or minimized. The subtle messaging, "that's good for a girl," can have lasting effects on self-perception. We must be mindful of this and constantly work towards recognizing and celebrating our worth. 

It’s fascinating to see how our past accomplishments can boost our future confidence. It's about embracing our power to create change in our lives and inspiring those around us. We're all capable of greatness, and it's time we own it! Celebrate you, embrace your results, and inspire the world. 🌟 

Referred to in this episode: 

Better Than Before Breast Cancer Life Coaching Membership 

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. Hey, friends, welcome to episode 276 have better than before breast cancer with me, Laura Lummer, the breast cancer recovery coach, I'm so happy that you join me today. In today's actually a pretty special day. I'm recording this podcast on my youngest son's 24th birthday. And I always reflect back on life, you know, not only when I hit milestones in life, but when my kids hit milestones like celebrating birthdays, or achieving and accomplishing something in their lives. And it just causes me to think back on when I was their age, and where was I add and what I thought my life would be like now. And I look at my kids, my youngest tote, so there'll be 24 Today, my oldest is 41. And then my other two kids, one will be 32. And next month, and then the other one is going to be 40 in January. So they've had a lot of life under their belts already. And it's pretty amazing. Like had my kids are almost as old as me now. It's pretty weird. But I was thinking about something as I considered my son's birthday. And I just thought about how much he has accomplished. He's 24 years old. He's got a degree in mechanical engineering. And he's really paved his own way. We recently started a business together that I'm very excited about. But I did that because he's such a go getter. And he just make stuff happen. Like I never ever think about or worry about him floundering you know, no matter what happens, no matter what come his way. And he's dealt with some some pretty rough challenges already in his 24 years of life. He always finds a way. And he's extremely strong willed, you knows he figures that out on his own. He's also made some bad choices in 24 years, he's also done some things that as an adult, I may have looked at and thought they weren't so great. And so of my other kids, right? Isn't everybody in life that way. But when I think about my kids, and I think back on the cumulative years of life, I've witnessed them having, but especially my 41 year old who had literally traumatized me for most of his life, and where he's at now in life, I was thinking about this, and I thought, you know, I never think about my kids from the perspective of shame, I never look at them. Or recall, first, the bad choices they made, or the decisions that I think they could have done a lot better. I never shame them. You know, in my mind, even I never look at them and think that was a really dumb thing they did 10 years ago. In fact, I will have to spend time to really sit and remember most of those because I just am so proud of them. And I look at them. And I think about all the good. And I celebrate with them. And sometimes when I see them, just not embracing their own value, not loving themselves as much as I believe they should love themselves, you know, not treating themselves with the care that they deserve to be treated with. I'm always saying look at this, look at what you've done. Look at what you figured out, look at what you've made happen, look at what you've been through. And I'll give them their history, right? And I'm always showing them like, yeah, sometimes things are hard, but you've always figured it out. And that in itself is something to be so proud of. So then I think about myself, and I think about how many things I've held against myself from decisions I made when I was a very young person, a teenager, a young adult, poor choices, things that maybe were hurtful to other people that I'm not proud of. And I was thinking about this as I consider my son's birthday. And I thought why is that? That we look at other people we love and we embrace their worthiness and we celebrate their worthiness with pride and was so much meaning was such a full heart. And that whenever we see them down on themselves, we're the first ones to be there to remind them, you're spectacular. You're awesome. You've got this, you can do this, I believe in you. But when it comes to ourselves, we just don't give ourselves that same grace. And I coach women so often who Not only hold their past against them, beat themselves up for it. But with the incredible amount of energy that they put into that, that they put into remembering the things they didn't do, right, or well or good enough, or things, they fell for things they should have seen, or things they didn't see coming or things, they may have said so much energy and intention and attention goes into that, that they completely overlook all the amazing things, they've done amazing things, you know, and not only is there an overlooking of amazing things, but there's also a minimizing that happens. So I want to talk about this. Because when I consider the beauty of a life, and the potential of a life, and then I hear so many people who are so hard on themselves and don't celebrate not only their achievements and their accomplishments, but just their their ability to just manage, can we just agree right now that life is challenging as hell, it can be so hard, and just managing that and keeping your shit relatively together over the course of it. That in itself is something you get to celebrate, okay, you get to be okay with and proud of. But in several coaching sessions I've had recently as I'm talking to my clients, and some of my clients have been with me for years now. So I know these ladies, and I've seen transformation, I have watched them change their lives, their careers, the way they think the way they treat themselves. And I'll still see them slide back into self doubt, into self loathing into shaming. And into digging back. It's almost like we're intentionally looking for something to make us feel bad. Let me look back in my past, and let me see and point out Oh, yeah, but that thing I did, that wasn't good. But where's the attention and the intention and the energy we put into saying, I got through that. And that was that was really hard. You know what? I have some friends now that have teenage kids, being a teenager is hard. Okay, being a teenage female is hard. Starting your period, developing boobs, all that stuff. It's awkward. It's uncomfortable. Did you get through it? Good for you. Think back on how challenging that was? Now, why do we gravitate to remembering the pain? And instead of giving ourselves credit for the accomplishment, how hard it was, and maybe how many years it took to figure yourself out? Right? It's a long journey when we're teenagers, oh, I would never go back there.

Laura Lummer  07:42

But I think that when we stop now, as adults, we absolutely have to start working on intentionally acknowledging all of the things we've accomplished and come through in life. We've got to acknowledge our strengths and catch our brain. When our brain goes to what you didn't do, right? What could have done better what you didn't do soon enough. And just know that that worked out exactly the way it was supposed to. And the important thing was, it worked out, and you got through it. And you figured it out. And you kept moving forward. When I look at my son celebrating his 24th birthday, and I look at my other kids and their birthdays coming up, and I just see the lines they're creating for themselves. And then I look back at my life. And I think, Okay, this November, I'll turn 60 Sounds like big, right? It's like freaking landmark, big, 60 years old. And it's especially big for me, because I will have passed the three year mark of living with metastatic breast cancer by the time I turned 60. And let me tell you, when I look back at those three years, and I remember that date of my diagnosis, and I remember thinking, will I even be here for Christmas, I was diagnosed on October 11. Would I even be here to see my kids next birthdays. And now I think back over those three years, and practice even more the focus and the celebration on what I've done, and what I've accomplished and what each day has meant. And even though that's included a lot of treatment, it's included a lot of pain. It's included a lot of change. It's included some really big changes for me in my life. And most of them were really uncomfortable, really hard. And so as I sit here and I think about moving into this next decade of my life, I realize that unless I can look back at what I've overcome, and what I've accomplished, it's really hard to look forward to what I want to create. And I think about it a lot this month because in the better than before breast cancer membership. We're working on the results we want to create in our life. And I think to be able to feel really confident. And I think that's important, right? You've got to feel confident that you have the ability and the capacity to create something, whatever that thing is to change something to hold on to something, whatever it is, you create, we call the airline, you create the result, the result is the airline. But in order to feel confident about creating that result, you've got to look back and remind your brain of everything you have already created so many results throughout your life. And I think it may be challenging. And here's why. Because it's so common that even when we accomplish something good, we minimize it. We judge it. We're like, Yeah, it's good. But it could have been better. Yeah, I mean, that would have happened anyway. Yeah. Was it really that big of a deal? And we just don't give ourselves credit. It's like when someone compliments you on your hair or your outfit or whatever. And you say, Oh, this old thing. You know, why the minimizing? Why do we do that? Why do we step into minimizing ourselves instead of embracing ourselves and letting our heart glow and accepting the 100? The empowered feeling the good glow that comes from recognizing that? Yeah, I'm good, and I'm worthy, and thank you, and accept compliments and take them into ourselves and remind our brain? Yeah, I'm worthy, I'm good. I'm not perfect. I do stupid shit. Sometimes, I miss things. Sometimes I make mistakes. Sometimes I fail at things sometimes. But you know what, that's just part of being human. If you didn't do all those things, you would not be a human being. So let's talk for a moment about A few reasons why we do this. Why do we minimize our accomplishments? Why is it so uncomfortable, to embrace the things you've done throughout life, the things that you've accomplished, the results that you have created for yourself. And I'm going to share with you some of the things that I see when I'm coaching people. And when I'm talking with my friends, or engaging with other women, these are some of the top things that I see. One of them is definitely cultural conditioning. And what I mean by that is, as far as we've come in the United States, where gender roles are concerned, there's still a lot of ideas that we as women except on our input on ourselves, when it comes to this, you should be humble. You should be meek, you should be mild, don't brag, don't brag about yourself, right? Don't make other people feel like you're better than them are more important to them. And this is a really interesting thought pattern. Because here we go into this one when it's cultural conditioning. And we think, Oh, if I say that it's bragging, if I embrace and celebrate my results that I've created, I think it's empowering. I think it's inspirational. I seek out women who have accomplished big things. I seek out people who frigging healed from stage four cancer, I seek out people who built businesses, I seek out people who have done things that you would sit back and look at and go, I never thought I could do that. Because I think it's so inspirational. I want to hear it all. I want to hear how women have overcome obstacles, I want to hear what they've created to support other women. I was. So this week has been just really amazing connecting with a couple of different organizations who are out there with women who have survived breast cancer, and are creating things to put back in the world. And it's so exciting. And so when I'm in this space, and I'm listening to these women, and I'm seeking out these women, I can't help but see so many other women that I know and work with and coach who are incredible, but hold themselves back, won't embrace their results because they feel like it's immodest, or it's bragging or it's arrogant. And so I want to address that, because I think this thought is super important. When we're arrogant, or we're bragging. I think that part of that is trying to show someone else up, right? Arrogance is an air of superiority, it is a way of saying you're not as good as me. Right? And from what I just shared with you, there's a way that we celebrate our successes, embrace our results, share those results, that is put out into the world to help others to lift others up, and especially when it comes to women. And I'm going to talk about that in a minute. So I worked for a mostly female organization for a very long time. And especially when it comes to us women, we've got to put more energy into lifting each other up. So how do we do that one is we've got to overcome this cultural conditioning of thinking that sharing the incredible results you've had sharing how you've overcome challenges, embracing them for yourself so that they're really a part of you, and that you feel comfortable with them that you become comfortable with yourself, that you celebrate that part of yourself as like, damn, I can do this, like I can overcome things, I can make stuff happen. And in sharing that with others, we inspire the world to be a better place. So I want to offer that mindset shift from bragging and arrogance and immodesty to inspirational and empowering for those that are around you. And for a deeper sense of self love for yourself to get comfortable embracing the great things that you do, and the great things that you've done for yourself.

Laura Lummer  15:58

Another one, and I alluded to that a little bit a minute ago is this imposter syndrome. And impostor syndrome basically means it's the psychological pattern where we minimize things, right. We doubt our own accomplishments. We accomplished it, and then we look at it and say, but that this and what else was I supposed to do? Instead of really saying, Yeah, I did that. And it wasn't hard. Because inside we think, Well, you know, maybe I'm taking credit where credit isn't due. If those circumstances hadn't fallen into place, it wouldn't have happened anyway. And we just minimize and minimize and minimize instead of stepping into what we've actually done in our life, because we feel like people will think we're a fraud. And here again, I want to keep pointing this out, when we do things like React or not react or embrace ourselves because of cultural conditioning, because of imposter syndrome. When we fail to do that, because of those things. We're living by other people's thoughts. We're living because the underlying thought is, what will they think of me? Right? What will they think of me? If I embrace this about myself? What will they think of me if I step up? And I say, Yeah, I did that. Yeah, I made that happen. Oh, yeah, I am going to make that happen in my life, because I've got this and I can do this. And I wonder, as you're listening to me saying that, I want you to just think about, what are you feeling inside of you? What's coming up inside of you, when you hear me say that? When you hear me say celebrate you? Own it, step into that ownership? Make a life list of every single thing you have done, including like graduating from kindergarten, like everything you've managed to achieve in your life? Make a list and celebrate that and give yourself credit for that. How do you feel when I say that? Is it uncomfortable? Does it sound exciting? Does it sound inspirational? Does it sound arrogant? And whatever it is that comes to your mind, really give that some consideration? What are those thoughts that come up? And how do they make you feel, because when you recognize those, you might start opening up little tiny windows to seeing why you don't celebrate the amazing person that you are, why you're not comfortable loving yourself, and owning the results of the life you've created. Some of the other things that I see, and this is a big one. So it's like a fear of backlash, but it's really just more of a fear of what people will think of you. Right? It's that, oh, well, I don't want people to think that, you know, I'm arrogant, or I'm promoting myself, or that I'm that person that has to one up everybody. And so again, that's not what we're talking about, right? When I talk about loving yourself, embracing your results, stepping into your results, owning them, celebrating them, listing them, reminding your brain of what you are capable of. That doesn't mean walking around, like wearing neon signs and seeing anyone else's accomplishments and then having to one up them, right. So when we're embracing ourselves and loving ourselves and recognizing our accomplishments, it's actually completely the opposite of this arrogance and superior and self promotional attitude. Because when we can do that, and embrace that ourselves, we see more in other people. So we don't have the desire to one up someone who's celebrating their success sharing their results with us. We celebrate that with them. Because we become comfortable embracing the power, we have to create things in our lives. So actually works the opposite of these thoughts that we've been conditioned to think. And a final reason that I see and this has actually played a big role in my life is the gender bias. Right? And I don't think that it's intentional that this happens, and I think it depends on the world someone grew up with so generations have a lot to do. It is. But it's been my experience that the you can accomplish something that's the similar or is exactly the same thing as some men in your life or a male person that's in your life. But the male's accomplishments get celebrated more, because we don't have the same thought process when it comes to men talking about their accomplishments, right? When men talk about what they achieved, people listen, people like Oh, other men think, Oh, well, how'd you do that? Other men are motivated to do more than that guy. Other women, I was pretty successful. I like it, right. But we're not always, especially from childhood, raised that way. I can remember as a kid, like, I always played sports, and my brother always played sports. My brother was a great athlete, I was a pretty good athlete, I wasn't as great as him. But I was a good athlete. And I accomplished a lot of things and won awards. But in our house, there was a wall in the bonus room of our house dedicated to my brother, it was literally a shrine of every award of every achievement of every trophy, my trophies and my certificates were in my bedroom. Right on the dresser, my certificates were in a folder somewhere in a drawer. And so I've talked before about you that little version of ourselves, the little mean. And this takes me back to what I started talking about in the beginning of the show, when I think about my children, I remember their little versions of them, right growing up. And I love those little versions of them just as much as I love the adult versions of them. And I would never in my life think of looking at my child, or any little child who accomplished the simplest things, right? Think about little kids sometimes. And they'll do. Let me show you what I can do. And they jump into the pool. And you're like, so good. What a great way to jump. But do we look back at our versions of our little former selves with the same care and the same tenderness and excitement? Are we do we talk to ourselves like the redheaded stepchild from Game of Thrones. And some of that can have to do with even subtle messaging, when we were growing up of Oh, that's nice. You're a girl, it's cool that a girl could do that. That's good for a girl. Right? And so it's that more conditioning of minimizing while you're a girl. So that's okay, but look what he did, right? Something just to think about. And I don't say that to, to go back and look at our lives with anger or blame towards anybody else. But just think of the messaging. Again, as I said, I don't think anyone does this with malice, my parents didn't have a shrine to my brother, because they didn't love me or care about me. But they did have a different mindset when it came to males and females. And it was from a different generation, right. And it's very different from the way I think about the accomplishments between males and females. But I do think it plays a role in our inability today as grown females, to step into the ownership and the celebration of our results of what we've created in our life, and how we have gotten to the point in life we are now. And again, the reason that is so important and so powerful, is because when you do that, it builds confidence. It trains your brain, and it teaches you that you can do more. You can do it whatever you desire, whatever result you want to create. I think again, about going through breast cancer treatment, how does this relate to everything going through that experience of breast cancer? I talked many times on this podcast about how powerless people can feel, right? We go into this medical world, all this new jargon, all these new treatments, choosing between this hard decision and that hard decision. And we feel very powerless, which is why I'm such an advocate of metabolic approach to cancer where we step in, and such an advocate of doing this kind of thought work. We step in to embracing things we do have power over, and things that can create the results we want in our lives. So I'm going to leave you today was a homework assignment. And the outcome, the hoped for outcome. The Arline for this homework assignment is to remind you how amazing you are, how powerful you are, how much you can do, how much you've already done, how you've done that, how you figured it out, and to challenge you to celebrate it, to get a pen and piece of paper and to go back as far as you can. And remember every little thing you have accomplished. The first time you baked a cake and it came out good. The first time you made an amazing dinner the first time you figured out how to pay rent by yourself. Think about all of the amazing things you've done, because we spent way too much time thinking about the things we didn't Do good enough. And in order to turn that tide, we've got to remind our brain. There's so much more you did, right. Okay, I would love to hear where you come up with. So I really do hope you do this assignment. Because as we near the end of the year, we've got three mo for in September, so we got four months, but that last quarter of the year, it can be so strong and set yourself up for an amazing year following that, right. But recognize first how much power you have to make that happen in common find me on Facebook or Instagram, DM me, you'll find me as the breast cancer recovery coach on both of those platforms. And tell me what you recognize what results have you created in your life that you are proud of, and that you will step into owning. And if you want to learn how to celebrate that even more and create even bigger, better results for yourself in your life, come and join the better than before breast cancer life coaching membership, because this is the stuff that we work on. Every month. We've got a new topic, we dig into it. We do our self coaching on it, we do our coaching on it, we support each other on it, and we learn how to really step into our ability to create the lives we want to live that are better than they were before breast cancer. All right my friends, take care plan some time for your homework, and I'll talk to you soon