Listen to Own Your Growth: Lessons on Habits & Motherhood

00:04 

Hey there, and welcome. Are you a woman who is unapologetically ambitious, but you're also deeply focused on honoring God, loving your family well, and pursuing meaningful work? Well, you've come to the right place. My name is Dana Byers, and you and I are going to be fast friends. Let's get started. Are you a Christian working woman who is looking to boost your confidence and transform your life? Well, I have got just the thing for you. My online course. The 10 hour Confidence transformation is available now. This course is designed to fit into your busy schedule and provide you with actionable strategies to increase your confidence. Plus, with your purchase, you will get access to a private monthly group coaching call where we can connect and grow together. Get all the details right now@danabycoaching.com.  

 

01:05 

Hey everyone, this is Dana. Welcome back to another episode of Been There, learned that. How are you today? You know, I'm really curious about that. You might be listening to this on a Monday morning or on a weekend, I'm not sure, but I'm wondering, how are you? Could you just take a moment, check in with yourself. How's your heart? How are you feeling? Are you distracted? Are you focused? Are you grateful? Are you struggling? Anything you're feeling is completely okay. I just want you to admit that I noticed as I sat down to record today that I was a little stressed and I got curious about it, and I went, you know what? This is actually ress, which is positive stress. A little, a little word I picked up, I think in my eighth grade health class. Positive stress can also cause us to feel distracted, disoriented.  

 

02:03 

I have so many incredible things going on, you guys. Oh my gosh, I'm excited. I am grateful. And I have to be careful as a woman who is just like the women I coach, a high achiever who loves Jesus, but can get a little bit overwhelmed. I have to be careful to one, take captive my thoughts, and two, to have my own back to support myself. So as I sat down to record my podcast, software crashed and I went, no, I have something so fun to talk about today. So I took a couple deep breaths, I prayed, I went through my task list and went, okay, these are actually all really good things. Let's give it a shot again, did a restart. And friends, we are recording. So no matter what day it is, no matter what time of day it is, if you need to give yourself a pause and a little restart, do it.  

 

03:01 

It's so worth it. It's given me the chance to be here, to show up fully and be present with you, and I want you to have the same. Okay? So in this podcast, I am sharing every week about things that I have learned. We dive deeply into the topics of authenticity, overcoming people pleasing, finding purpose, getting closer to Jesus, and so much more. Like I said, I'm your hostess. I'm Dana, and today we're gonna tackle a topic that is critical for every woman who is looking to make real lasting changes in her life. Here's the topic. We're gonna talk about radical accountability and radical ownership. So I hope you're in the mood for a little bit of tough love today, because I'm gonna share something with you. I'm just gonna offer it to you. Something that I've learned over the years, this is information that both as a woman who needed to change some of her habits and some of her ways of thinking, but I've also learned this as a woman who has coached other women towards breaking habits and developing habits that serve them better.  

 

04:10 

So, you know, maybe you can't trust yourself with a bag of chips, or maybe you can't trust yourself with your credit card or sticking to the speed limit. Maybe you're frustrated by the habit that you've developed of yelling at your kids or your coworkers when you feel stress building up in your life. Now, these habits that we develop, they're not just about a lack of self-control, that's part of it to be sure. But they often to me, signal a deeper issue, an unwillingness to hold ourselves accountable and to take ownership of our actions. So imagine someone who is struggling with an addiction, maybe to sugar or to social media, or even to binge watching television. You know, maybe she gets home from work in the evening and it's all she can do to open up a bag of junk food and sit down in front of the TV and just kind of zone out.  

 

05:04 

So to break free a woman struggling with anything like this, she needs accountability, but not the kind of accountability that relo that relies solely on other people to enforce it. Because real change happens when you embrace radical ownership in your transformation and combine that with radical accountability. So let's break it down. There are two crucial truths that coexist simultaneously. And yes, I'm gonna repeat that phrase. These two crucial truths coexist simultaneously. For those of you who are very linear thinkers who think very black and white, I want you to hold the idea in your brain that these things can both be true at the same time. Okay? I want you to work towards accepting that. Here's the two crucial truths. One, you need help breaking habits. And two, no one else can do this completely for you. One, you need help breaking your habits. And two, no one else can do this completely for you.  

 

06:08 

So the intersection of embracing these two truths is where the magic happens, okay? You need support and accountability from other people, but the real transformation starts when you are taking full ownership of your actions and decisions. And that's why I can confidently say that my coaching works. I only work with women who are ready and willing to change. So when we think about accountability, I want to say something that when I've said it before or shared it in an email to my email list, I've had some pushback on it. And here's what I like to say, actually, I wouldn't say I like to say it. It's just, gosh, you guys, this is just so true to me. This is my life's experience. I have rarely had good accountability unless I pay for it. I said what I said, in fact, one of the most hurtful broken friendships in my adult life came from a friendship with a woman who really meant well, but she would not show up to hold me or herself accountable.  

 

07:09 

You see, we had agreed to show up for each other, and she wanted what I brought to the friendship table. She wanted the accountability, the support, the empathy, the tough love, all those things, just the kind of the coach that I am. She wanted all those things in our friendship, but she wouldn't check in on me. She wasn't comfortable giving me pushback, asking me questions, and it didn't have anything to do with me. I didn't take it personally, but I had to eventually hold her accountable for not holding me accountable. You hear what I'm saying? Unfortunately, that relationship didn't really continue. You know, we aren't enemies at all. It didn't end poorly, but it just didn't become what I had hoped it would. And I discovered that radical accountability is hard to get. You might have people in your life that do bring accountability, and if you do, that is wonderful.  

 

07:54 

I have that as well. But what I'm saying is I've never had radical accountability that really has helped me make the progress I need to, unless I've paid for it. Okay? So that means working with a coach, maybe working with a therapist or someone else to get you into the right frame of mind, the right mindset, to have a plan of, of action to take, and then to support you as you're working on that action. You know, if you follow Jesus, you probably know that accountability is really encouraged in the church as a whole, and I think that's wonderful. I think it's very important, but I rarely find that one person is enough to provide the full support that we need. You know, I'm sure you've heard it said that it takes a village to raise a kid. Well, I know we're adults, but I think it takes a village to develop a fully grown woman just like you or just like me in some ways.  

 

08:45 

You know, we don't know how to do what we haven't done before. So to get excellent accountability and support is what helps us really grow without burning out. So that's why I've chosen in my life over the years in various areas where I've kind of hit a wall, if you will, in my development. That's why I've paired a few of my trusted relationships with friends, and I've paired that with hiring a coach. It it very quickly raised the bar in a significant way to help me break some habits and building, you know, some better habits or even some amazing ones to help me see myself differently and experience life in a new way. So one big hurdle, just to give you an example, one big hurdle in my personal development was having a sense of not enoughness. Not enoughness. In my role as a mom, I have two incredible kids.  

 

09:36 

They're both young adults now, but years and years ago, I could see that my struggle in this belief of not feeling I was enough for them, that I wasn't deserving of them, that I couldn't give them what they needed, those beliefs were impacting not only of course, my relationship and my leadership of my kids, but also it started to bleed into other areas of my life, my marriage, my leadership, and more. And as I think back on myself all those years ago, I have so much compassion for just the, the sense of overwhelm that I was experiencing back when I was a young mom. You know, both of my kids experienced different types of difficulties early in their lives. And my own previous trauma meant that it was easy for me to think that their struggles were somehow all my fault. I was really wrapped up on that.  

 

10:24 

And because of that incorrect belief, I got a lot of things wrong. I developed some poor habits as a mom. I was in survival mode for many years, and I wrestled with God. It wasn't like I didn't know Jesus. It wasn't like I wasn't spending time in his word, going to church, connecting with other believers, but I still wrestled with God about feeling you know that my kids deserve the world, and that I was falling short and being the mom I thought I should be. And there's that word, should I really hate the word? Should. My husband teases me about that a lot, that I try not to use the word, and if he does, I give him kind of an annoyed expression that I don't like the use of the word should. But I really was trapped in this belief of the mom I thought I should be, because it seemed like all my friends were naturals at being moms.  

 

11:15 

And I struggled to show up the way I wanted to, and it really all came to a head when I noticed a terrifying thought repeatedly coming to my mind. I was thinking, you know what? Maybe my kids would be better off without me. And that's when I learned that a thought is just a thought and not all thoughts are true. I had to learn to capture my thoughts. I had to learn to be intentional about the change I wanted to see in my life, in my thought life, and also in the actual actions I was taking as a mom to lead and love my kids well. But it started with my thought life. So I had to really tackle that lie with diligence. I needed some accountability with that. I asked for help. I prayed, I made apologies. When I came up short. I, you know, I focused on parenting for my strengths, and I learned how to do better now, how to quit comparing myself to other moms.  

 

12:09 

And then I started just doing better. I started showing up in a way that felt lighter to me. I started showing up in a way that brought so much enjoyment to my role as a mom. And I wanna tell you practically what happened, just to give you an example of what this looks like in someone's life. So I really got to a point where I was able to embrace the calling of being a mom, instead of fearing that I was messing up my kids by falling short, by not being all the things that I thought I should be for them. Because eventually a miracle happened, the more authentic confidence I built as a mom, as I was held accountable to my actions and to my thoughts and how I was showing up in my day-to-day life. The more I built authentic confidence, and the more of that that I built, the more I saw my kids flourish.  

 

12:57 

It was incredible how this outcome happened. As I stepped into the joy of believing I could be a good mom to my kids, I started feeling even closer to them. I started feeling even closer to God, and I was more at peace in my own body. I was able to show up even more authentically as myself because of the authentic sense of confidence that God was giving me as I sought out support and encouragement from others in my life. So what happened was my focus shifted. It shifted towards becoming an expert in my two incredible kids. Instead of trying to be a perfect mom, I just wanted to become an expert in my kids. The more curious I became about how God wired them, the more I thrived as a mom. I began experiencing my kids as gifts that I got to unwrap nearly every day.  

 

13:45 

And to my amazement, I began noticing that my kids were surpassing every dream I had ever had for them. As I grew, they grew. And really nothing has filled my heart, like watching my kids flourish. They have become some of my greatest teachers, not only the experience that God gave me to raise them, and I'll always be their mom, but now, like I said, they're young adults. So now I, I'm still learning so much from them in my life as I observe them, give them freedom, encourage them, and watch myself grow, that continues to pour into them as well. And it brings to mind John 15, four, where it says in the Bible that we cannot bear fruit without abiding in Jesus. So embracing that sense of not enoughness that I had as a mom, that's what actually set me free to be an imperfect mom.  

 

14:35 

It led me to ask for help to quit fearing mistakes and to trust God for outcomes that I knew I could not create on my own. And this change happened because I took radical responsibility for the patterns. I said, I don't like this status quo. I don't wanna stay here yet. I also sought out radical accountability from a few trusted sources to help me take those steps of faith, to increase my sense of confidence and my leadership of my kids. So over the years, you know, I've encountered a lot of clients who have wanted to dabble in change. If that's you, this episode is not for you. And I just say that from a place of love. If you're just wanting to dabble in change, you're not ready. You might be spending years researching, but you're not ready to take a step. And that's okay.  

 

15:22 

I won't judge you for that, but I also am not ready to work with you. And here's why. If you're not ready to commit fully, as tough as that might sound, coaching's not gonna work for you. You know, there have been times where I have realized it's not appropriate for me to prioritize my energy to someone who's not really ready to experience transformation because they're afraid either maybe, maybe they lack trust in themselves or they've never been coached before. And so I'll really try to get them to a place of understanding. If we play out where you are at today, what will your life look at? What, what will your life look like if we play out exactly where you're at today, if everything stayed the same, what will this look like and what year? You know, five years, 10 years? And try to create a sense of motivation.  

 

16:08 

Maybe not negative motivation, but a sense of clarity and reality around the decision they're making. Because sometimes a woman will say, okay, I wanna get coached. And then she shows up and she gets a little bit scared. I have complete compassion for that. I know what that feels like. But if you hire a coach, you're gonna get some radical accountability and you're gonna take some radical responsibility for where you're at. There's no judgment for that. But we also have to really accept the true fact of where we are today, our behaviors and our thoughts, the actions we're taking, so that we are ready to see the outcome that we long to have. We have to remove ourselves, our ego, from the current scenario that is so frustrating to us. Get the help we need, revisit it and see God bring a change into our lives.  

 

16:54 

So what does radical accountability look like when we're practicing it? Well, it starts with a willingness to be honest with yourself. It means recognizing where you are falling short without making excuses. It's about setting up systems that help you stay accountable, whether that's through a coach like me or a support group of your friends, maybe your small group at church or a Bible study you're part of, or even just the personal strategies that you also develop to keep yourself on track. But here's the kicker, you cannot completely rely on these external systems. And that's what happens when I see a client come to me and she gets a little bit nervous about coaching. She's like, you know what? I'm just gonna go back to what I've been doing. I'm gonna try harder. And I would lovingly say to you, if you're thinking that right now, if those external systems were working for you, you might not be listening to this episode.  

 

17:48 

You might not be, be reaching out to me for coaching. Okay? Now, it's not to say they can't work over time, but I like to say I help my clients go further faster without burning out. We save you time, energy, and money by working together. Because if you're relying on external systems, you don't have as much backup support as you might need to make the leap that you want to make. Those external systems, like maybe a tracking app, keeping track of your food or your exercise, or writing down, you know, your feelings in a journal, things like that. Those are wonderful. They are there to support you, but not to completely carry you. You see, true accountability and ownership do come from within. You have to wake up every day and make the conscious decision to stick to your commitments, face those challenges head on, you know, but also knowing that you've got the support to help you so that the wheels don't fall off this thing when you hit a stressful moment.  

 

18:42 

So the drive to change has to come from you, but the drive to change also involves inviting other people into your story. So think about it. When you take radical ownership, you stop seeing yourself as a victim of your circumstances, you start recognizing the power that you have over your own life. Yes, it is hard. Yes, it requires effort and sometimes facing uncomfortable truths, but the rewards are so worth it. And trust me when I say that back when I was working, you know, 15, 20 years ago when my kids were little and I was working with that sense of not enoughness, it never occurred to me that years down the road, I might get to share that story without shame in a way that would inspire other women to step into their role as moms. That never occurred to me. That is a significant reward for the work that God helped me do all those years ago.  

 

19:31 

And I'm so thankful for it because now I'm not embarrassed about where I was. I'm not embarrassed about those thoughts. I'm on the other side of them. And I want you to know that there could be rewards beyond less stress, greater health, and improved relationships in your life, rewards well beyond it. You could be impacting other people's lives as you live out this story with radical accountability and radical ownership. Over time, you're gonna start to see changes. You will notice them as you lead into this approach. They're small at first, but they will grow. And maybe you'll find it easier to stick to a budget or to notice that you were more mindful about your eating habits. Or perhaps you'll just start to set healthier boundaries with your time. Say no to that person in your life you might be in a codependent relationship with, or you might start cutting back on the time you spend on social media or Netflix binges.  

 

20:24 

You see these small victories build up creating a ripple effect in your life. And that's what happens when we take radical ownership and receive radical accountability. You see, you can shift your identity and start seeing yourself as the person you felt you could never become. I have seen that time and time again with my clients. When a woman embraces radical accountability, radical accountability and radical ownership, and invites God into the process, she achieves results that once seemed impossible to her. She amazes herself with the progress and develops a newfound confidence that spills over into every area of her life. So if you're listening to this and you're ready to take that next step, I am here to help. I'm serious about your transformation, and I really hope you are too. So together we could develop the radical accountability and the radical ownership that you need to move towards living the life that you've always wanted. Well, thanks for joining me today for this episode on Been There, learned that If you found today's episode valuable, please share it with someone who might benefit from this message or leave me a five star review. And if you're ready to dive deeper into your own transformation, check out my current coaching offer@danabyerscoaching.com. I would love to be on this journey along your side. Until next time, stay committed to your growth. And remember, God can provide you exactly all the energy and all the strength you need to change your life.  

 

21:58 

I'm so glad you joined me for today's episode. I don't know if you know it, but our conversation doesn't actually have to end right here. In fact, if you go on over to dana byers coaching.com, I have a bunch of resources available. Take a look, see what's available, see if any of them would benefit you in the specific season that you're facing in your life right now. I'll see you here next week.