Total Health in Midlife Episode #222: Learning to Trust Yourself with Dawn Ledet

Dawn: That’s the greatest myth. The greatest lie I would go so far as to call it a lie. That’s the greatest lie out there.

Elizabeth: Right?

Dawn: Being nice to yourself is going to make you not do things for yourself that you want. Do you really think by being kind to yourself you’re just going to sit in a corner and eat M& M’s? And never move your body? No.

Welcome to Total Health and Midlife, the podcast for women embracing the pivotal transformation from the daily grind to the dawn of a new chapter. I’m Elizabeth, your host and fellow traveler on this journey.

As a Life and Health Coach, I am intimately familiar with the changes and challenges we face during this stage. Shifting careers, changing relationships, our new bodies, and redefining goals and needs as we start to look to the future and ask, what do I want?

In this podcast, we’ll explore physical, mental, and emotional wellness, offering insights and strategies to achieve optimal health through these transformative years.

Yes, it’s totally possible.

Join me in this amazing journey of body, mind, and spirit, where we’re not just improving our health, but transforming our entire lives.

Elizabeth: Have you ever tried to set a goal, maybe to exercise regularly, eat better, or finally get consistent with your sleep, only to fall off track and wonder, why can’t I just follow through? Now, most people assume that it’s a discipline problem, or maybe they think they’re just bad at sticking with things.

Elizabeth: But what if I told you that that’s not the real issue at all? What if the reason you’re struggling isn’t a lack of willpower, but a lack of self-trust? Hmm. Now, in today’s episode, I’m sitting down with Dawn Ledet, a self-trust coach and author of Master Your Inner Dialogue, Transform Your Self Talk for Goal Success. She’s here to show you why following through on your health goals isn’t about pushing harder, but rather it’s about learning to trust yourself more. That sounds fascinating, doesn’t it?

Elizabeth: Today, you will learn why missed goals aren’t a self-sabotage problem and the real reason that you struggle to follow through. You’ll learn how to rewire your inner dialogue so that you actually want to stick with your health habits. And a simple practical system for turning your plans into consistent action. Even if you failed before.

Elizabeth: If you’ve ever found yourself thinking, I should be able to do this, but I just don’t. This episode will change the way that you think about health, motivation and follow through forever. So, Grab a cup of coffee, settle in, and let’s dive into this game changing conversation with Dawn Ledet.

Elizabeth: All right, everyone, welcome Dawn Ledet to the Total Health and Midlife podcast. Dawn, I am so super excited to have you here. We are just going to have a great conversation because we’ve just been chatting and yeah, it’s just going to be great. So, let’s start out by telling everyone, introduce yourself, tell everyone what you do, how you help folks and all of that great stuff.

Dawn: Yes. Well, I am thrilled to be here. I’m so excited for our conversation. I am known as the Self-trust Coach, and what does that mean? Right? Like what do I help people do? Trust themselves more. The answer is yes. But why it’s so important and why it’s become my mission is because it really is the root behind so many of the things that we have challenges with.

Dawn: And I like to distill things down. And so, I believe that everything we want to accomplish can be done by building three essential skills and that’s make decisions. Follow through on those decisions. And then, have your own back, which means like to evaluate, learn from the consequences or results of those decisions and follow through and use that data to move forward. Now, what we do instead often is we punish ourselves and we judge ourselves and we criticize.

Dawn: And so, that’s where self-trust comes in is building those three skills fueled by self-trust. So that we have our own backs. So that we can make decisions that are right for us, that are aligned with our values. So that we’re willing to make decisions that actually might be a little riskier, that when we’re doubting ourselves, we’re willing to be. So that we follow through without all the wasted time, second guessing, and all the wasted energy doubting ourselves. And we create a unified front towards everything we want instead of this divided battle of self against self.

Elizabeth: Okay. So, I have a couple of questions for you.

Dawn: Yes.

Elizabeth: First. Do you specifically work with women, or do you work with women and men?

Dawn: I mostly work with women, though I do have a few male clients and of course everyone could use self-trust. I think you know, many times women identify with me more maybe, but we have some really great men out there who are waking up to, if I can say it that way. To how important their inner dialogue is, which was one of the main things that we touch on. How important it is to grow that self-trust so that you’re not punishing yourself forward.

Dawn: So, yes, I do work with both.

Elizabeth: Well, and I think that my question really was because I know from my experience of working with women. That women, my clients really struggle with self-trust. And so, I guess, the subtext of my question was, do men also struggle with this? Okay, so that’s good to know.

Dawn: Yes. It really is something that we have to call attention to because we’re going to notice the symptoms of not having self-trust more than we’re going to say. People aren’t walking around very often. More women maybe than men are saying like, ‘I lack self-trust.’ We more notice the symptoms of it.

Elizabeth: Okay. And what would those be?

Dawn: So, it’s often when you are belaboring a decision is one way. So, if we take it to those three core skills, which is what I like to base it on, that make decisions, follow through and have your own back. We see it in the decision side as second guessing as belaboring, making the decision over researching, putting it off. Then, once you make it, second guessing it.

Dawn: In the follow through skill, we see ourselves as starting strong and then backing off. We see coming up with any kind of result that doesn’t match what we want. Making that be a reason to stop, to no longer continue to follow through. We see it in the having your own back by punishing ourselves and judging ourselves for those decisions.

Dawn: For criticizing our inability to get it right or do it as well as X, Y, and Z over there. Wondering, why we can’t just get it done. Those are some of the examples of a lack of self-trust.

Elizabeth: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Like in health, what I see a lot is folks who don’t follow through on their goals or they don’t accomplish their goals. They set out a goal to exercise three times a week or whatever. And so, what I hear you saying is that would fall under the second piece, which is the follow through.

Dawn: Yes. They’ve made the decision and they’ll probably, get started and move forward or some people won’t, right? So, there’s that if is the decision firm enough, am I trusting my decision? Am I having my own back on that decision? Then, when we move into the follow through. It’s the one day, if they said three days they were going to work out and they only did two days that week.

Dawn: And instead of being proud of those two days and looking for how they can meet their decision of three, how they can follow through on that decision. And using the data that they learn from inquiring of themselves, if instead they beat themselves up, decide that they’re a failure and that they give up. That’s a good sign that there’s some self-trust to be worked on.

Elizabeth: Yeah. Okay. So, one of the blaring questions that I had when you started introducing yourself was why don’t we trust ourselves? Cause I don’t think that many people do trust themselves. I think that it’s a lot of people don’t. And so, I’m just curious, like, where do you think that’s coming from?

Dawn: Absolutely. It’s slowly whittled away from us, from a smile, small children. Like even the idea of think about in school, when you think I have to go to the restroom and you trust that that’s true because I noticed in my body, I have to go to the restroom. And then, the teacher’s like, no cause it’s not time for you to go to the restroom. And you’re like, Whoa, wait, do I not know do I need to defer to someone else?

Dawn: And that’s a small, simple example. I’m sure not saying anything against teachers. Otherwise, I know there would be a million kids asking to go to the bathroom all the time, all at once. But it’s really in those simple things if that gets your brain moving in that direction, it’s so small. You know, your best friend really likes something. You say, you like something, and they say they don’t. And then, you start to question.

Dawn: It’s in small ways that we sort of whittle away at our own self trust and start trusting external forces, people circumstances more than ourselves. And so, it’s really innocent. It’s not something that is done intentionally, I don’t believe. In some cases, I’m sure people who have that experience, but why it’s such a people wide challenge is because of those simple things. And we’re just not taught to bring it back, so we have to do it intentionally.

Dawn: The other piece is just how we’re wired. Literally, how our brain works is to be this all or nothing thinking, this ‘either or.’ And so, when we get to a piece of where I didn’t do something, and we decide, I can’t trust myself to do that one thing. We start making it mean we can’t trust ourselves in lots of different areas.

Dawn: Because our brain is so good collecting evidence and proving to us. So then, it’s going to bring every time you didn’t work out. Every time you plan to work out three times, and you didn’t. Every time, you plan to stay on this food protocol, and you didn’t. It’s so good at that. Our brain loves to bring up, it likes to bring up past, it likes to discolor the present, and then it likes to predict the future. It’s brilliant at it.

Elizabeth: Say that again because I need to hear that again. You said, what do we do to the past?

Dawn: It will actually bring up evidence from the past. It won’t bring up any evidence to the contrary. It will bring up to prove like, oh, you didn’t work out three times, like you said, you did. And remember, when you did that last time, in the year before that, and when you tried it five years before that.

Elizabeth: Right.

Dawn: And then, it starts looking at the present only through the lens of what you’re not doing. It doesn’t count the fact that you worked out twice. It just says, see, you never follow through.

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Dawn: And then, it goes to the future and says, you’re never going to do it. So, why even bother?

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Dawn: So, that’s what our brain does. But I will say the best news about that is it will provide evidence with whatever you give it. So, if we’re able to expand that lens, beyond just what you didn’t do and introduce the ‘and.’ Like, yes, I said I was going to work out three times. I worked out two and I got into workouts in next week. I’ll get in three, or I’ll work in another one today, or this afternoon, or tomorrow.

Dawn: It’s continuing that conversation instead of letting it land like a brick of nasty sludge saying like, now here is a mess that we have to deal with instead of here’s just a truth. It’s not my whole truth. It doesn’t say anything about me as a human. It’s just something that we can acknowledge, expand on, and then move forward.

Elizabeth: Yeah. So, I suspect that there are people who are listening right now who believe that this is just how they are. They’re just bad at health or they’re just not meant to whatever it is, exercise, or they just can’t resist eating chocolate. What would you say to them?

Dawn: I would say that that label is what’s holding you back. It’s a decision. So, you’re literally making a decision, and then your brain is going to go and prove you right because that’s what it does. It’s why I have such a problem with all the noise about self-sabotage out there. It’s because it is a quick label that we can put on ourselves.

Dawn: And then, we’ve decided, okay, this is who we are so there can be no change. And if you don’t want to change, that’s fine. But if you do, why would you ever make that decision on yourself? And then, go prove it over and over again because that’s what’s happening.

Elizabeth: Yeah. Yeah. I like to think of like self-trust as a skill. Is that how you define it?

Dawn: I consider it a core trait.

Elizabeth: Oh, okay. Interesting.

Dawn: That we can build. Yeah. So, there’s many ways to look at self-trust. As we’re building it, we are practicing the action of trusting ourself. But ultimately, the goal is to make it your operating system, truly the overarching way of being for you. So that everything else that you think, and feel, and do comes from that lens.

Dawn: Because we’re so often looking at the world, looking at our own actions, looking at ourself through the lens. of either belief in yourself or disbelief in yourself. And when disbelief is the main lens through which you’re looking at it, it makes sense that you only see the failures, the non-completes, the not compliant with protocols. It makes sense that that’s what you’re focused on.

Dawn: But it’s also why it makes moving forward so hard. So, we have to shift into a kinder, gentler way with ourselves where we operate from trust and belief, not that things are going to always be easy because they’re not. But why punish ourselves with like the hardest part.

Dawn: I tell people this all the time. The hard is going to come. We don’t have to create it and we don’t have to be like constantly anticipating it. It’s just going to come. You’re going to know it. It’s not going to be like, you’re going to miss it. You’ll definitely know when it comes. And trust means knowing that you can make your way through it and be a kind partner through it instead of this, like always punishing yourself, judging yourself, criticizing, or deferring to what you think you can do or deserve instead of what you want and what’s possible.

Elizabeth: Well, and you know, the thing about self-trust I’ve noticed for myself and for my clients is that it’s this cyclical or circular type of thing where the more we trust ourselves, the more we recognize that we can be trusted. So, maybe it’s talking about the evidence of the past, but talking about it in a different way in a positive way instead of the negative way.

Dawn: Yeah. It’s looking at the whole picture because I think that’s a really good point. We can see only the negative. The lack, the loss, that’s where we often tend to go. And when that’s the only space we’re focused on, we just see more of that. Now, having self-trust doesn’t mean ignoring the lack or the loss, it means making space for both of it.

Dawn: Because when you see even some of those lack and loss, there is always a gain. There’s always something that we can pull from it. But when we’re only focused on seeing it as a problem and what it did to us or why we were wrong for it, we miss out on so much self-trust building truth. Like, we miss out that ‘I overcame this really challenging thing.’

Dawn: Like yes, I gained X amount of pounds. And look what I was able to get myself through with that. Maybe that’s what I needed to move through that space. We miss out on this, like, owning our choices. Instead of judging ourselves for them, owning them as like, this is the best that I could do to take care of myself through this time.

Dawn: I’m so good at taking care of myself. Now, I get to change that. Now, I get to shift how I take care. Or in what moment of life and time that I’m moving through, what works best for me? That works the best for me then. Would I do it differently now? Yes, but I’m different now.

Elizabeth: Right. Exactly. 100%.

Dawn: What I know has evolved. Yes. We’re on this beautiful continuum and we got to note that one, we take ourselves with us the whole time. But we grow and we evolved and we can be such a loving, trusting partner on this journey. If we’re just willing to open up our minds and see things just in a little different way, work against a little bit.

Dawn: I’m not going to lie. Is us working a little bit against the back of how we’ve been conditioned and really, in some cases, wired?’ But it’s so fun. It’s such fun work because you see yourself in a whole new light. That’s why I love this work so much. Having done it with myself and then with hundreds of people over the last five years. It’s incredible.

Elizabeth: It is fun. Like one of my mindsets is kind of like, ‘huh, I wonder if I can do that.’ And it takes the pressure off of having to do it. So, it just becomes this experiment. And I think because I used to think that way, I still do occasionally. But it really allowed me to start building that self-trust and that evidence that, Oh, wow, I can do really amazing things. Of course.

Dawn: The doubt doesn’t go away. It still comes up. Like having unshakable self-trust, which I would say that I am at this point where my self-trust is unshakable. But I still have these common thoughts that come through and doubts here and there, right? Like, it doesn’t go away, but how I handle it is so different. They become triggers for affirming myself.

Dawn: And that’s what I love to teach, especially if I have a book called Master Inner Dialogue. And we can make those often, I think I tell it in the book. If I don’t, I’m sharing it here. One of my common thoughts was, what’s wrong with me? And I would say it in this like, accusatory tone. There’s nothing curious about that. That’s one thing I would love for your listeners to note. If you’re asking yourself questions like that, they’re not curious. They’re judgments with a question mark slapped at the end, faking curiosity.

Dawn: And we want to answer those questions because when we don’t, they just spiral and they go find friends. So.

Elizabeth: I love it. Thank you. Sorry.

Dawn: I loved to go find friends. You know, what’s wrong with you? Yes. And remember, when you did this, and how you didn’t do that, and how you’re not going to be able to do this. Right. And so, in the journey of my growing self-trust, I switched it because I just thought it was funny. I got a kick out of it. I think it’s a little less funny now. But I’ll share it and we’ll see if you get any feedback about this.

Dawn: But my answer to it began being everything and nothing. What’s wrong with me? Everything and nothing. And I thought it was so funny. I said it to some people, and they don’t find it quite as humorous. But I just imagined that being like the funniest thing. And now, I know the truth is nothing. And I would invite everyone to actually answer it that way.

Dawn: But if you’re not there yet to be able to answer it clearly in that way, find something funny that just makes you laugh, that just distracts from building that community of friends that wants to support and look for what’s wrong with you. Because it’s like fishing in a pond with no fish, but it’s just going to cycle bringing up all kinds of stuff that love just wants to paint that picture for you. And it’s not fun and it’s not kind and it really doesn’t support you in creating the change you want in your life.

Elizabeth: Yeah. Okay. So, let’s go through the three different points, making decisions, following through, and having your own back. So, making decisions seems pretty simple, but it’s not.

Dawn: I think we all make decisions every day and sure, all the time, like literally nonstop. So, that’s the first thing. Like, I always invite people to connect to how many decisions you make, because there’s a lot of story out there. I don’t know if you see this often, but people think they’re terrible at making decisions. But you’re really not. There may be sometimes where there are decisions that are more challenging than others. And I say that maybe you need something to make that decision.

Dawn: So, instead of shutting yourself down with the label that you’re bad at making decisions. Let’s explore, what do I need to make decisions in this case, in this point? If I turn that into curiosity of working with myself, instead of just expecting myself to make a decision and move, I’ve opened up a dialogue I get more connected with myself because I actually learn maybe need to talk to this person, maybe I want to read about this one thing.

Dawn: If you are an over thinker about it, like you want more and more and more information. Then you ask yourself, what is it really that I am looking for in order to make this decision? What if I don’t go out there and search for something that will just spark it? What if I just decide? What are you thinking I need for this? Do I need to just talk it out with a friend? Do I need to go read a journal? Do I need to get in touch with an expert that can support me and help me do this?

Dawn: So, that’s the main thing is to not label yourself as a bad decision maker or an overthinker. The labels really do shut down our wisdom. I can’t say it enough. When we label ourselves even as procrastinator, perfectionist, we give our self no way forward. We don’t learn anything from that. So, let’s sleep.

Dawn: Look at it because I have found where in people who consider themselves perfectionists or procrastinators. We have found superpowers within what they were considering those two things because they had labeled it and didn’t look into it. And when we explored it, it was gold. Like, no, this is actually one of your superpowers. This is something that makes you different. And it’s why you can accomplish X, Y, and Z. No problem.

Elizabeth: Yeah. I think that most folks listening, they might not have problems with making decisions, but in my observation, they probably overcommit in their decisions. So, they will make the decision that I’m going to exercise five days this week. When they haven’t exercised in a year.

Dawn: But why would that be an overcommit?

Elizabeth: Well, because then they can’t follow through. So, is that then in the following through piece?

Dawn: Yeah. So, it’s deciding that they can’t, would be the label.

Elizabeth: Okay.

Dawn: But if they say, now this comes to the evaluation, having your own back. Like I went through the week, I worked out three times. I know I had decided five, turns out that doesn’t work for me. Here’s what I’m going to shift for next week and experiment with.

Elizabeth: Got it. Okay.

Dawn: Maybe I’m going to decide three and I’ll work my way up to five. Or I really think I can do the five. I did the three this week. But let me look at what do I need to make that five work? What got in the way this week?

Elizabeth: I love it.

Dawn: How can I strategize to make it work next week? That’s the have your own back. The evaluation and really, so not deciding that you can’t, deciding you didn’t, and being really honest on that. That self-trust means creating a safe space within yourself to be honest. So, I’m not a terrible person because I said I was going to work out five times and I only worked out three.

Dawn: But I’m also not going to blame a lot of things. I’m not going to say, I can’t do it. I’m not going to blame the weather. I’m not going to blame all the things, I’m going to say, I chose not to do it. The reason why it didn’t happen is because I chose not to. And I don’t have to judge myself for that. I get to decide, do I want to choose differently next time? Or do I want to change the plan? That’s self-trust.

Elizabeth: Yeah. Well, and what I can hear people thinking right now is, but I should be able to.

Dawn: Oh, yeah. That’s the inner dialogue piece. You can, I mean, answer that. Truly. That’s what we can continue the conversation. We hear those thoughts as if they’re like, again, the sludge that lands in front of us. It’s just a conversation. I should be able to do that. I’m going to answer it with, and I can. I just chose not to. Let’s see what’s up. Do I want to choose differently? Do I want to change plan? We don’t even have to argue. It’s like we’re partnered together. Like, yes, I could, and I can. It’s not a problem. I just didn’t. Let’s decide differently or change the plan to one that works based on what we just learned from not having chosen it.

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Dawn: Maybe there’s some really good reason that just happened this week, and next week you can absolutely do it. Or maybe it’s like, you know what, I think I bit off a little more than I can do right now. In order to be successful, instead of shutting down, let me go down to four or let me do three for a month. And once I’ve done three for a month, I’m going to move it up to four for the next month.

Elizabeth: Yeah. I love it. Okay, so let’s move through the follow through. I mean, that seems pretty simple, but I think that we get tripped up in this.

Dawn: Follow through is the hardest because we decide when we don’t follow through or when we get a result that we don’t love. That we did something wrong, we made the wrong decision, we can’t follow through, that’s all comes up. And so, that’s again, where our inner dialogue plays a huge piece.

Dawn: Because if we are just having our own back, owning, like, when something doesn’t go the way you wanted it to go. When you make a decision to work out five days a week and you work out three, it doesn’t make your decision to work out five days a week wrong.

Dawn: It also doesn’t make you wrong. It just means there’s some exploration to be had. Which one of these do I want to shift? What can I look at? What needs to change? What do I need to make it to the five? Do I need to step it up in tears instead of going right for it? That’s the piece.

Dawn: The other piece is discomfort. Follow through becomes hard because people forget that it’s supposed to be uncomfortable. And it just is. And it’s nothing wrong with you. It literally is how our brain’s wired. We have this thing called the motivational triad that seeks pleasure, avoids pain, and conserves energy. It’s literally wired to do that.

Dawn: So, you have that piece of your brain. We want it. It’s actually very useful. We’re not going to combat against it. We’re not going to say that it’s wrong for being there. It’s very useful. And it’s not always right about what’s happening. It doesn’t mean we’re actually in danger. That’s sort of what it’s there to protect for. We’re kind of looking out for problems, or danger, or lack of safety.

Dawn: And so, we just have to remind ourselves that that’s normal. Of course, it’s uncomfortable because our brain, when something new, or different, or that exerts energy, or any of that comes up, my brain is, it’s going to feel uncomfortable. And when we can anticipate and allow the discomfort, we don’t make it a problem, then we can keep moving forward.

Dawn: It’s like, ‘yes, this feels, I don’t want to do it.’ Yes. Of course, not. I’m not going to argue with it. There are lots of things that we don’t want to do, but we do want to do it. So, that’s the other piece. It’s not letting that in the moment, not wanting the discomfort be the only voice. We want to also listen to our other part of ourselves that does want the result of doing it. That does want to be healthier. That wants to work out and eat healthier.

Dawn: And so, in the moment, it’s not wrong that it comes up that you don’t want to do it. Of course, you want to not get out of bed and go work out. And you want the result of working out. So, both are true. And you just decide ahead of time that it’s going to be uncomfortable and that’s okay.

Dawn: The other piece of that is discomfort is Okay to answer. Sometimes we think we have to push ourselves through. And I offer that we can create a comfort plan. It’s actually one of my favorite things.

Elizabeth: Ooh, I want to hear about this.

Dawn: Yes. So, a comfort plan, what we give ourselves as comfort when it’s discomfort, think if we take the going to work out. Say, you’re doing it right in the morning. I know some people know it can be any time of day. But let’s take if you’re working out in the morning. Your answer to the discomfort of getting out of bed is to stay in bed. That’s your comfort plan right now.

Dawn: And I’m saying let’s design one that actually aligns with your goals. Let’s create new comforts that actually still get you out of bed. It honors that it’s uncomfortable. It doesn’t make you wrong for having the thoughts that you don’t want to. And you have something to comfort yourself that doesn’t get in the way of actually moving forward and carrying on with your plan.

Dawn: And so, there’s different kinds of comfort. I think of them as mindful, physical, spiritual, and preparatory. And so, coming up with, I encourage people to come up with several in each of those categories. So, preparatory easy with this now with this situation would be having your clothes set out the night before having like a smoothie ready to go in the fridge.

Dawn: Maybe all these things that tell you, like, I’m so good at taking care of myself. And actually, say those words. Tell yourself how great you are taking care of yourself. Always encourage that. Mindful would be like having some sort of either like affirmation that you want to say, something of an image or of outfit, something that you want to fit into.

Dawn: Also, I like statements, mindful statements of like, of course, this is uncomfortable. And I can’t wait to follow through. I can’t wait to again, show up for myself. I’m so excited to show up for myself. Like, telling yourself that, being your own champion. Spiritual, whether it is a meditation or a prayer. I also love physical would be more like, having a song that you just pop on right. Like, something that just, you cannot just stay in bed when you hear it.

Dawn: It gets your body moving like you just are like it makes you happy coming up with something, I like since like having some sort of a candle that I can light or an essential oil that I can put on. So, different things like that.

Elizabeth: Yeah, like all of those different pleasure centers.

Dawn: Yes.

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Dawn: So that you’re just rewiring, like comfort guests can be grabbing the sugary sweet. It can be staying in bed. There’s nothing wrong with that. It just doesn’t get you towards your goal. ~And so, coming up with a new comfort plan and practicing going to that each time, the more that you practice it, it becomes the. ~

Elizabeth: Yeah. I love that. Okay. You said so much, and I know that there were things that I should have been taking notes, but I was like completely raptured. And I was thinking about my own morning routine. So, I get up at like 5:45 in the morning. And one of the reasons that I get up at that time is because I love my morning ritual. And I love having that first cup of coffee, and the smell, and the warmth, and everything that I do around it. And so, yeah, I totally identified with what you just said.

Dawn: Yes. I love, I’m a 5:30 AM girl too. And I have a whole morning routine and it is non-negotiable. And it’s just changed everything. And the more that you look at those things and actively identify them as, look how good I am at taking care of myself. That’s more ways that we just create that confirmation bias. More ways that we build self-trust. So, that’s follow through, right?

Dawn: And then, for having it back, it really is the piece of reviewing, evaluating for data, for your progress, for your growth, for your celebration. It’s instead of our norm, which is to judge ourselves, to pick things apart, to look for all the ways that we could have done things different, said things different. It’s shifting that to being on our own side to saying, Hey, that didn’t go the way I wanted. What do I want to glean from this? What can I do differently? Or what do I need to arrange for myself differently? Or what did I learn from that?

Dawn: Maybe it’s something that needs to be delegated, or outsourced, or maybe it’s something that needs to be learned, or developed, or maybe it’s something that can be dropped. Maybe we don’t need it as much as we think we do. That’s always fun too.

Elizabeth: Yeah, I think that that self, that inner dialogue piece is so incredibly important. I know that when I started a lot of this thought work, I was not in touch with my thoughts. And I’m sure that that’s something that you teach as well. And I realized that we make assumptions about why we didn’t follow through without actually evaluating our thoughts at the time.

Elizabeth: One of the things that I think happens a lot, and this is conjecture. But I think that we make decisions based on who we used to be a year ago, or who we think we should be. And then, when we don’t follow through, we make this assumption that we are just lazy. Which is like the inner dialogue piece, but sometimes our circumstances change.

Elizabeth: And we don’t have time to do the thing because of where we are in this station in life. And we just have this inner dialogue that tells us that we’re terrible, and that we’re bad at making decisions, and that we have no follow through, and da da da da da da da da.

Dawn: Yes. I’m trying to think of the word like the flow that comes out, it becomes this like tornadic spin of friends for those thoughts that were terrible. That somehow, we did something wrong. Instead of, hey, what if just the circumstance changed, and therefore, some decisions needed to change as well.

Elizabeth: Yes.

Dawn: What if that’s it? What if you’re amazing still, as you always are. And there just is new information that we have to work with. That’s the goal. To get to that piece where we’re open to seeing, what does this information give me instead of what does it mean about me as a human? Because where we’re trying to get to with the operating system, if you will, of self-trust.

Dawn: If we go to that overarching just being of someone that trusts themselves. Then, terrible circumstances are going to happen. Trusting yourself isn’t going to change that. But your experience of those things changes markedly like, so much. How you move through it. You are going to get through. I love to tell people this all the time. You’re going to get through it either way. You’re literally going to get through it.

Dawn: The difference is, do you want to get through it doubting yourself, judging yourself, criticizing yourself, and being the worst friend to yourself ever? Or do you want to get there having explored all the possibility, championing yourself, lifting yourself up, and propelling yourself forward?

Elizabeth: I love that. And so, talk a little bit about that piece right there, like getting through it, being a jerk to yourself versus being nicer to yourself, being kind in yourself talk. Which a lot of folks believe, a lot of my clients believe that if they are compassionate with themselves, then they’re just going to let themselves off the hook.

Dawn: Always. That’s the greatest myth. The greatest lie I would go so far as to call it a lie. That’s the greatest lie out there.

Elizabeth: Right?

Dawn: Being nice to yourself is going to make you not do things for yourself that you want. Do you really think by being kind to yourself you’re just going to sit in a corner and eat M& M’s? And never move your body? No. And if we ask ourselves those questions, that’s important too, really. If we get to the piece where we can just be so honest with ourselves and we’re willing to continue that conversation. Instead of letting it land with just the statement, if I’m compassionate and kind to myself, I won’t do all the things that I want to do.

Dawn: If I then say, is that true? Like, let’s play this out. Let’s play this scenario out. What might it look like if I was just really nice? What would it look like If I had my own back on my health and how I want to show up for myself? So different. It’s the punishment and the judgment and the comparing ourselves to other people and the comparing ourselves to our past. And bringing up all the past times where maybe we didn’t follow through, or when we made mistakes, or we didn’t do things the way that now us would like for us to have done it. Just so unfair.

Dawn: It’s like you’re not the same person. Quit judging those decisions, right? Like you’re not going to make those same decisions now because you’re not the same person. Unless you keep judging yourself, because that’s what actually leads to not taking care of ourselves. Not sometimes believing that we are worthy of taking care of ourselves. Not owning the power of how we already have.

Dawn: There may be some things that you don’t like about yourself. I would really hope that that could be changed, of course. But it happens like we all have it. It doesn’t mean that that is the most interesting thing about you. It’s not the biggest part of you, but if that’s where you’re focusing. Then, that becomes the downward spiral of negativity and judgment. Which then, who wants to do amazing things? Like work out or buy really healthy food when we’re like shutting ourselves down with all this negativity and bad self-talk and showing us how terrible we are like, of course not.

Dawn: It does the opposite of what we think it does we think it propels us forward. And look, in some ways, it does. I am the first admit that for decades, high Achiever did it by pushing and punishing myself.

Dawn: Now, I will say this, I did not know that I had negative self-talk. I have no idea. I discovered that starting my journey with self-trust and then coaching thousands of people. That’s when it really came up and I started seeing that how important it is. How it really does change so much.

Dawn: And so, yes, that’s why I say, you are going to get there. If you really want it, you’re going to get there. It’s your experience of getting there, and how long it takes that changes with self-trust versus without it.

Elizabeth: Yeah. I’ll echo that, that I didn’t realize how much was going on in this head. I was, yeah, completely oblivious to all of the thoughts and feelings that I was having. And how they impacted my actions, and decisions, and all of it.

Dawn: And some of them are so sneaky. Like they pose as questions. That’s why I said that earlier, it’s like they pose as questions, but really, they’re just judgments with question marks at the end. And some of them are like these toxic positivity, not like you don’t believe him at all, you’re just saying. It really is interesting when you get into paying attention to that inner dialogue and shifting it. And I know we can capture, there’s a lot of talk about capturing all the thoughts.

Dawn: I don’t think we actually always have to. If we start shifting our relationship with them, that will make massive changes. We don’t have to explore every thought we have, because the truth is we don’t have to believe everything we think. And if we come to it from this relationship with ourselves that I will offer the lens that I offer people that has changed so much for me, and my clients is all of me is for me.

Dawn: And if I adopt the lens that all of me is for me, crazy thoughts like that was dumb. What’s wrong with you? You’re stupid. They aren’t problems. When all of me is for me, they’re actually there for two things. One, an invitation to affirm yourself. Of course, I’m like so smart. I’m not stupid at all. Thank you. Thank you for saying, it’s like the little devil’s advocate. Like, yeah, thank you. I needed to reconnect to how smart I am.

Dawn: Or number two, it’s an invitation to consider a different perspective. What isn’t like, what was dumb here? Like, if I really want to explore it, is there something that I want to see this differently, like, Oh yes, I did. I decided five times. And dumb’s a strong word, but if we’re, you know, we say that to ourselves.

Dawn: So, you know, what? That was actually not the best thing for me to pick five days a week to work out for this first week. I am going to bring it down to three. I think that’s probably a better place to start and I’m just going to commit to three for a whole month. And then, I’ll reevaluate. That’s the different perspective. So, it’s either an invitation to affirm yourself, your path, or your goal. Or it’s an invitation to check the different perspective.

Elizabeth: Love it. All right. So, for someone who does not believe that they have self-trust, they don’t trust themselves, where should they start?

Dawn: I would invite them to go and join my seven day self-trust boost series. It’s a free email series where you can just start to reconnect to the trust that you do have because it’s always there. And start to build on it. I think it’s a great place to start to reconnect to who you are, the decisions you do make, the decisions you have made, the things you have followed through on.

Dawn: We want to focus on the things we haven’t. And no airtime is given to all the ways you follow through. The things you’ve accomplished, the children you’ve grown. You’ve literally done some amazing things in your life, I promise. And if you’re only focused on not eating a carrot yesterday and not doing that one workout, it’s so unfair to how amazing you are. So, I would invite people to go check out the self-trust boost series.

Elizabeth: That’s amazing. And then, also tell us about your book because that sounds fascinating too.

Dawn: Yeah. And you can actually go check out master your inner dialogue, transform yourself, talk for goal success. It’s on Amazon, or you can go to my website. I have a great, actually email series to a company called, ‘Beyond the Pages.’ And it’s all about everything we’ve been talking about here. Really shifting your relationship with those thoughts. You don’t have to capture every thought. But you do want to start noticing, what is the lens through which, well, actually we look at the origin, the lens, the tone. And how we can start to shift our relationship with those thoughts so that we can use them to affirm ourselves or to see a different perspective.

Elizabeth: I love it. I love it, everything. Okay. So then, finally, where can people find you if they want to learn more and tell us all about your social and your podcast?

Dawn: Yes. So, if you want to find out more, everything is on theselftrustcoach.com. So, theselftrustcoach.com, and you can access the boost is on the first page there. The book is available there, and the podcast. The podcast is called, ‘The Self Trust Solution.’ And we’re talking all things about self-trust, how to grow it, how it impacts you, in your goals, and your pursuits, and in your relationship with yourself. And then, on social, you can find me on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn, and it’s all dawnledetcoach.

Elizabeth: Fantastic. Well, thank you for being here. I really enjoyed this conversation and I hope everyone else did too. Because self-trust is such an important part of improving your health. And so, the more that we can build self-trust, and here’s the thing is like, if you trust yourself in one area, you can bring that over into your health.

Dawn: Everything. Absolutely. Self-trust changes everything. It’s my favorite thing to say. It literally changes everything. So much of what you’re doing, you’re going to continue doing it and you’re going to feel like a whole different person because everything becomes easier in many ways, like our normal day to day, the challenges still come, but how we move through them, so different.

Elizabeth: Love it. All right. Thank you, Dawn.

Dawn: It has been such a pleasure and honor. Thank you so much, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth: Wow, what an amazing conversation. If you’ve ever struggled with sticking to your health goals, I hope today’s episode gave you a new way of looking at things. It’s not about working harder, it’s not about being more disciplined, and it’s definitely not about shaming yourself into change. It’s about trusting yourself. Your decisions, your follow through, and your ability to course correct, all without the guilt.

Elizabeth: If this episode resonated with you, I highly recommend checking out Dawn’s book, Master Your Inner Dialogue, and her Beyond the Pages guided email series. Where she walks you through simple strategies for changing your inner dialogue and building self-trust. You can find her at theselftrustcoach.com and on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn at dawnledetcoach.

Elizabeth: And if you loved this conversation, do me a favor. First, share this episode with a friend who’s struggling with follow through. Maybe leave a review because it helps more women like you find the podcast. And if you’re ready to build self-trust in yourself, when it comes to your health, let’s talk. Head over to my website and book a free, ‘I know What to Do, I’m just Not Doing It’ strategy call.

Elizabeth: Thank you for spending this time with me today. Keep showing up for yourself, even in small ways. And I will see you in the next episode. Have an amazing day. I’ll talk to you next week. Bye. Bye

Thank you for tuning in today. Now, if you enjoy the podcast and are ready to take the next step in addressing your health concerns, I would love to invite you to schedule an I Know What To Do, I’m Just Not Doing It strategy call.

In this 60 minute session, we will explore what’s holding you back and create a personalized action plan. You will gain clarity, support, and practical steps to move you forward. Visit elizabethsherman.com/call to book your call now. You can transform your health and I would love to be there to help.