“’Should’ is obligation. It’s shackles. We’re so shackled by what’s comfortable that we’re not willing to take risks. – Ellyn Schinke

Are you feeling a desire to do something different with your life?

It’s not that you’re unhappy. Instead, you feel like there’s something else (something BIGGER) that’s meant for you.

Your life is good though so you tell yourself not to rock the boat. You SHOULD be happy and content with what you have.

Yet, you can’t shake the feeling there’s something else you could be doing that would make life even BETTER.

You may even keep yourself up at night thinking through what a different version of your life could be like if only you had the opportunity to jump on it.

Let’s face it though…these thoughts and dreams scare you. You’ve invested FAR TOO MUCH to change things in your life now.

Life is settled for you. Settled feels good. Why rock the boat?

For some women, where life is right now IS the best it can get. But, for others, you may be selling yourself too short. You may be caught in the pattern of a “SHOULD LIFE.”

Living a “SHOULD LIFE” is going to leave you dying with regrets.

Living a “SHOULD LIFE” is going to cause you to do things that harm you more than help you (without you knowing it).

Living a “SHOULD LIFE” is costing you your happiness and limiting your growth more than you may realize.

On today’s podcast episode, life coach Ellyn Schinke, MS is going to reveal to you if you’re living a “should life.”

Ellyn’s energy is electric and her story will amaze you with what she gave up in her “should life” to go after her dreams instead.

IN THIS INTERVIEW, ELLYN AND I COVER:

• Ellyn’s “should life” story (including how and why she left her PhD program)
• How to know if you’re living a “should life”
• The cost of living a life that’s just “checking off the boxes”
• What happens when we listen to others about who we are vs. building the self-awareness for ourselves
• How to learn when you’re on the right track with your life (especially with your career)
• What happens when we avoid our feelings
• How to find courage when it’s time to make a big change
• How the death of a loved one can be a wake-up call
• How a sh*t storm in your life could be a spiritual awakening
• What “getting the call” for more feels like and what it means
• How to know if you’re too far into your life for change
• How to get unsupportive people to support you (and how to handle it when they still won’t)
• 3 big things that keep us from living the life we want

….And so much more. Listen via the link on the top of this page!

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

→ Apply to coach with me

→ Continue the conversation in my free online community

→ Get The 4-Day Accomplish Your Dreams Free Training 

→ Ellyn’s website

→ Ellyn’s Instagram

Full transcript:

Episode 13: LETTING GO OF SHOULD

This is the Become an Unstoppable Woman podcast with Lindsay Preston Episode 13, Letting Go of Should.

[music]

Welcome to the Become an Unstoppable Woman podcast, the show for goal-getting, fear-facing women for kicking ass by creating change. I’m your host, Lindsay Preston. I’m a wife, mom of two, and a multi-certified life coach to women all over the world. I’ve lived through enough in life to know that easier doesn’t always equate to better. We can’t fear the fire, we must learn to become it. On this show, I’ll teach you how to do just that. Join me as I challenge you to become even more of the strong, resilient, and powerful woman you were meant to be. Let’s do this.

[music]

Hi there, my friend, welcome to The Become An Unstoppable Woman podcast. Today, I have a very special interview guest. Before I get into everything about my guest, I just want to again, welcome you back to the show. Thank you once again for tuning in. I know I always say that, but I’m ever so grateful that you come back week after week. I listen to a lot of podcasts and there’s only a few that I’m really, really attuned with. Every week when they come out I get so excited. If I am that podcast for you, that’s so awesome and if you haven’t left a review for the show, please go do so. If you’re listening to the show on Apple podcasts especially, go leave a review there, it takes just a few minutes and it makes a big difference.

Now, today on the show, we’re talking about letting go of should. What is should per se and really what we’re getting into today is a should life. You may be living a should life. If you are waking up in the night and you just feel like there’s a call for something more. Maybe you have a really great career, but when you’re there, you just think about these other things you could be doing, or it could be in your personal life, you just think the grass may be greener somewhere else, but you’re happy too. It’s not that you’re unfulfilled, it’s just that for some reason, you have this desire to start looking at something else, potentially. Let’s face it, this thought scares you a bit, because like I said, life is good, life is settled, life is comfortable.

You probably have some financial momentum going on, you’ve been in your career for a while, your life is looking good on paper, it’s looking good in pictures. Again, it’s not like life is bad, but for whatever reason, you get this call that something else is out there. I hear this a lot from women and I was this woman at one point. I had this great HR career that I was building and I kept thinking, “Why does it feel like I should be doing something different?” I couldn’t let it go.

I happened to meet my interview guest while actually being on her podcast recently. We were connected through a third-party. I must admit when I went into the interview, I didn’t know that much about her. We did our interview and at the end of it, she said, “Hey, if you ever want me on your podcast, I’d love to come.” I said, “Okay, well, give me a pitch. What would you talk about?” She started talking about her should life and a little bit about her story and what she would want to share with my listeners.

I was hooked within about two minutes of her telling me about her story and what she wanted to share, because I think so many of you are going to be able to relate to this. My guest today for the show is Ellyn, Ellyn Schinke. She is a scientist turned transformation and life coach. She was sick of having what felt like someone else’s life. She found herself wondering, “Is this really all there is for me?” Ellyn knew that the answer was no, so she quit her PhD program, took off to travel the world and build her dream business.

Now Ellyn helps high-achieving, multi-passionate, millennial women take back their lives on their own terms. In my interview today with Ellyn, we get into so many amazing things. We talk about her story specifically and how she had the courage to leave that prestigious PhD program. We also talk about how it feels to be living the should life because a lot of women don’t know. They don’t know that there could be something else out there. We just talk about getting support from others if you decide to step out and do something different, what the cost of living a life just checking off the boxes looks like, what you may be doing that’s hurting you because you’re living the should life and you may not even know it.

We cover just different ways to become more self-aware so you’re living life more in alignment for yourself. We cover a lot on this episode and Ellyn’s energy is high and my energy is high when I recorded this episode with her, because, let’s face it, her energy is electric. I think you’re going to get a lot from her story today, just for inspiration, if not more than anything.

I hope you love this interview with Ellyn and without further ado here it is. Ellyn, I’m so excited to have you on The Become An Unstoppable Woman podcast today. I told the listeners all about you, how we connected, why I wanted you to come on the show and specifically talk about letting go of should. I think the best place to start is you telling everyone your incredible story about how you let go of should in your life. Will you share it with us?

Ellyn: Yes, definitely. Thank you so much for having me on. I love the name of your podcast. When I saw that, I was just like, “Oh, I’m in, 100%.” My story, I think the best place to start with my story is probably back in high school. I was one of those kids that was– I followed the plan very well, I did what I was supposed to do, I was in AP classes, I was basically a 4.0 student. I think I got one A- and that lost me my 4.0, but I was that student who had their hands in everything and was the good, little, well-rounded student.

When it came to picking my major for college, there were a lot of inputs in my life telling me what was a good major, what was a bad major, what was something that was impressive and because I’d been praised on my intelligence my whole life, it felt like my major needed to match that. I have always been a bit of a science nerd. I really love science and I decided to go into Microbiology, of all things.

I was choosing to study bacteria and viruses, which might be weird to some people, but I thought it was fascinating. I chose that career and I went all through college and worked after college, pursuing this career path of being a researcher, essentially, because frankly, I just didn’t know what else to do with my career, with that major. The logical next step after college was to get a lab job and the logical next step after that was to get my PhD. It was a lot of underlying should, you got this degree, so you should do this. You got this job now you should take this next step in the career path.

I was following my path very diligently and I got to graduate school and whenever you start anything new, it’s exciting, it’s fun. I’m a high energy, enthusiastic person so it was really easy for me to muster energy toward this new path of mine and about a year-and-a-half into it, I started having some serious doubts and some thoughts about maybe this isn’t the right path for me, but because I’d been along this for so long, I felt like I should do it, I should stay in school, I should focus on school even though there was a lot of stuff telling me that I need to just start taking care of me a lot better.

My emotional health was suffering. I actually, at the insistence of my graduate director of my program, she actually told me I should start seeing a therapist. I saw my first therapist after my first semester of graduate school. As it happens when you’re in school, my health took a dive, my physical health. I started putting on weight and drinking too much, trying to socialize with the people in my graduate program.

I just didn’t feel good about myself. I started prioritizing my health and in doing so, I found coaching and I fell in love with coaching. I started in health and fitness coaching, but finding coaching, I always say it threw a monkey wrench into my plan. I wasn’t supposed to love it as much as I did. I wasn’t supposed to enjoy it and want to spend a lot of time there. There was a lot of things in my life that were telling me, “If you’re a good, little, graduate student, this is your sole focus. This should be where you spend all of your energy. If you’re not in lab, you’re reading papers.”

I didn’t like that and I didn’t like the effect it had on my health and I didn’t like the effect it had on my happiness. I tried to fit myself into the mold. I tried to do what I should do and the more I did that, the unhappier I became and I ultimately– it’s a condensed version, but I ultimately made the decision to leave my PhD. In the fall of 2016, after what I call an avalanche of low points, I finally made the decision that three initials after my name wasn’t worth my sanity and screw should, and I’m going to do what’s best for me. I’ve decided to leave my PhD program with my masters and yes, that was the beginning of me starting to say screw should a lot more in my life and make better decisions for me and what would make me happy.

Lindsay: I’ve so many questions off of this. My mind is spinning. I can relate to this story so much. I know so many of my clients who can as well, of just checking off the boxes, not knowing exactly where to go and so you’re looking at everybody else, “Well, who am I? What should I do? Okay, you’re telling me I’m intelligent, I should be a scientist, right?” You’re just going along with the flow and then all of a sudden, it’s just these messages start coming to you of, ooh, something doesn’t feel right. Oh, this and that and it comes across from what I heard, Ellyn, is you, your physical health, your mental health. It was like these little bitty lessons starting to come out and more messages, deeper messages of, oh, okay, something’s off here. Oh, okay, even if I go out and get drunk, it’s still not making me feel better.

Ellyn: Actually, the funny piece about the drinking is, that was a big moment for me along the decision of, “Screw it, I’m putting myself first. I need to put myself and my health first,” is it actually originated from one of the worst hangovers of my life. I was looking around at all of it. It was women in science day and I was hungover from going out with my lab the night before. I was just like, “This is not the person I am. This is not what I’m capable of. I’m capable of so much more than this,” and I made a big shift in terms of prioritizing my health after that.

Lindsay: Is that when you found health coaching in essence?

Ellyn: Yes, actually, I was doing the workout program in sanity and I was doing it on my own and a friend of mine was involved with an NLM and she saw that I was so into this and she was just like, “Are you interested in doing this?” She’s like, “You can get a discount on all these products that you already use.” She’s like, “I really feel like you would be very motivating to people.” I’ll be fully transparent, I joined for the discount, but the more I got into it, the more I was just like, “This makes me feel good.” Supporting people, being able to be an example to them, being able to help them in something that so many of us struggle with, it made me feel so good.

Lindsay: You started to figure out what your desires are, what made you feel good, your passions? It sounds like that was the first time maybe too, Ellyn, you were actually listening to yourself.

Ellyn: Yes, I think I’d had inklings of listening to myself before that. When I was in undergraduate, I ran into something similar with the lab I worked in in undergrad of my boss essentially being like, “No, you’re not allowed to do all of these other things you’re interested in outside of working in lab. We want you to be focused on lab.” I was just like, “No, no, that’s not who I am. I’m not this one-label person. I’m a multi-passionate person.” I was TA-ing, I was doing soccer coaching on the side. It’s funny that it took me as long as it did to discover coaching because I’d been doing it since high school in some capacity, but I think this was the first time I consciously was just like, “You know what? Screw what you’re telling me to do, I don’t agree and I’m going to do what’s right for me.”

Lindsay: Oh my gosh, Ellyn, I feel like we’re soul sisters.

[laughter]

Ellyn: Definitely.

Lindsay: I can relate to your story so much and I know so many people can too of just again, checking off the boxes, looking at what other people say, and then all of a sudden you realized, “Oh my gosh, this is not me. This is not what I want to create. This is not who I am.” Even too when you’re saying doing little inklings of coaching here and there, I was the same way, I was teaching dance, I had done some mediator work and then it was just like, “Ah, hello, why had I not considered this before?” It slaps you in the face almost.

Ellyn: It really does.

Lindsay: And you think, “Why have I not seen this?” I think, and maybe you’ll agree with me, is that you have to go through those periods of not finding what works for you to find what really works. Do you agree?

Ellyn: Exactly, yes and I think that was the difference, is, I’m still a science nerd at heart. I will still be a scientist probably until the day I die because that is still so much a part of me, but when I started coaching, there was a profound difference in how I felt. We talk about me being an energetic person. There was a very, very big difference in my energy, my enthusiasm, my passion, when I was coaching versus when I was doing science [crosstalk] I would have known.

Lindsay: Okay, stop right there. Tell us about that.

Ellyn: Okay. I would go to lab and I would do experiments and I started to really, really despise, frankly, some of the core aspects of doing science research, but the thing that made me feel good, and this is what I realized, is, yes, there were certain types of experiments that I was super pumped by when I got a positive result, but I realized that so much of it was, I didn’t enjoy the process of science. I enjoyed the results and I enjoyed the outcome of being a scientist.

I loved getting the validation of when I’d produce good data or when I did a good presentation. I loved the validation I got from that, but with coaching, I think the big difference was the process itself was validating. There didn’t have to be in any given day or any given week or any given session, there didn’t have to be some big tangible result that came out of it and I still loved it. I was still enthusiastic and passionate about the process just as much as the result.

Lindsay: You started to notice, okay, I’m getting more energy here. I’m enjoying it more versus these highs and lows that you felt when you were doing experiments, right?

Ellyn: Yes and it was also the bad parts of coaching I enjoyed a lot more. Am I allowed to swear?

Lindsay: Yes.

Ellyn: Okay, because there’s something that Mark Manson says that I love when it comes to career and what your life’s work is going to be. He always says there’s going to be parts of your career that you don’t like. I love this. He always says, what flavor shit of sandwich are you willing to eat? Which is a gross way to think about it, but what I realized along the process was even the parts of coaching that I didn’t like, I loved so much more than the parts of science that I didn’t like. The parts of science that I didn’t like, I just wanted to check out and avoid and I’m not usually an avoider. When I’m struggling, I usually lean into stuff. I work through it. I figure out why I’m struggling and with science, I just wanted to avoid.

Lindsay: Yes and that’s why probably you were going and drinking and all this other stuff, just like let me feed my feelings this way. Oh my gosh, Ellyn, so good. I have to go back in the story when you said initially you decided you weren’t going to go back to school, you weren’t going to get your PhD. That takes huge courage to do that, to admit that, to act on it. You have to walk us through, how did that feel and how did you have the courage to do that?

Ellyn: It felt fricking terrifying and I think how I developed the courage is it was probably a one-and-a-half, two-year process of ultimately making this decision. I went to my student services rep. She was like the mom in our department. If you had a problem, you went and talked to her. I went to her probably a year-and-a-half ish before I decided to leave the program and that was nudge number one.

I remember her saying something to me in that conversation about how she felt like I came into this program with all of this, the energy, the enthusiasm, the excitement, the passion, and that she was slowly seeing it go away and we needed to find a way for me to find that again. I started having these little conversations over the course of the last year-and-a-half, two years with her, with some of my best friends, with some of my peers who were my mentors, if you will, in the program, these older students and the more I had these conversations, the more I couldn’t shake the feeling that I just wasn’t in the right place.

The big push for me, this is where I joke about the avalanche of low points, is, at the tail end of– or actually not the tail end. It was Memorial day weekend, 2016. My grandpa passed away and he’s the first close family member that I’ve lost. I’m very blessed that three of my four grandparents are still around, but he was the first one I lost. That was a big, big push for me because I realized here I am 3000 miles away from home doing something that I frankly don’t like, I don’t want to continue doing with my life and I’m not able to be home with my family in the immediate aftermath of this.

That was just like, “I’m not okay with this. I’m not okay. If I’m going to be away from my family in moments like this, I need to be doing something that I love and this is not it.” That was a big moment. About a month after that, actually when I was home for his funeral, my car was significantly damaged being parked in a parking lot while I was out of state. About two weeks after that, I broke the first bone of my life. I got into a bicycling accident and broke my elbow and then about two months after that, I had the worst professional meeting of my life. I was presenting data and walking through a new project and just getting raked over the coals without any opportunity to defend or explain my reasoning. After that meeting, I threw my hands up, and I’m like, “I’m done. If I’m in school and I’m not even learning anything, there’s really no point for me to be here.”

I would say the answer to the what did it feel like and what was the process, is it was a lot of micro conversations, it was a lot of low moments, it was a lot of talking it out with people, but we always say it like– or Tony Robbins says like, “We always think it takes 10 years to get to a moment,” or in my case, one and a half, two years, but really, yes, the moment is where we make the decision to make a change, but we had to experience everything that led up to that moment to ultimately experience the moment when we decide to do something different. That’s how it was for me.

Lindsay: I’m so happy you listened to that [chuckles] and that you woke up. In essence, I hear that you’re having the spiritual awakening, is what they call it too, of waking up, being the person you were meant to be. Ellyn, do you ever think about what if you would have stayed with your other life, what if you would have gotten that PhD? How do you think life would feel for you?

Ellyn: That is a good question. It’s really hard to even think about that because of all of the stuff that’s happened since I left my PhD, but I think life would’ve– Oh, God, I don’t even know how to answer this question. I think that I would’ve ultimately come to the same realization. I think it probably would’ve taken longer. Maybe I would’ve worked in research for a while or actually, the part of science that I still would do, if I’m being honest, is science communication. I love breaking down complicated science topics and talking them out to people.

Maybe I would’ve found a job doing that and enjoyed that for, I don’t know, maybe five years, maybe even 10 years. I think ultimately, I would have still been coaching in the background, and I still would have had this nagging what if I did this full-time? I think that would’ve eaten away at me until I ultimately gave it a try, because I don’t think I could have shaken coaching at that point.

Lindsay: I always refer to it as like a call. I was always getting this call of, “Lindsay, there’s something else, there’s something different,” and I couldn’t ignore the phone calls. They just kept coming and coming. I feel like for you, you would’ve gotten the same thing, was like, “Hey, Ellyn. Hey, answer the call, we’re talking to you. We’re leaving voice messages.”

Ellyn: Yes, I will fully admit that there’s a part of me that wonders would pursuing coaching be easier if I had PhD after my name? Talk about the terrifyingness of leaving the PHD, is, not everybody agreed with the decision. I had a lot of people who were very supportive of me doing what was best for me, but one of my very, very good friends, who I will be fully transparent, I haven’t talked to since we had this conversation, he raked me over the coals for it. He told me I was being stupid. He told me I was making a bad decision, and I was making a mistake. I lost a friendship over it.

I had a conversation with my dad after the fact on the fact he was disappointed. I even, as recently as a few months ago, had somebody in a conference tell me you should’ve stayed in your PhD because PhD after your name breeds credibility. There’s part of me that wonders, would it have been easier? I still maintain three letters after my name was not worth my sanity.

Lindsay: Ellyn, I’m already hearing the voices of some people that I know who will be listening to this who I’m wanting to really be inspired by this. I feel like one of the questions that they’re going to ask is, “Well, you were in school, it was easier for you to get out, but I already finished school, I’m in my career, I have a couple of years under my belt, I’m making this great salary now even maybe. Me transitioning is going to be so much harder.” What do you say to that woman?

Ellyn: I think what I’d say to that woman is, are you willing to live out your entire life and get to, I don’t know, retirement right before you’re going to leave this life and have what-if questions? I think the biggest thing that I have ever read about when it’s somebody, they’re in their old age, is, they ask what if? They have regrets about all of the things that they didn’t do earlier. I personally have never wanted to be one of those people. I even have my now-retired parents saying, “I’m so impressed.” They don’t get coaching.

They still aren’t 1,000% onboard, and they’re constantly saying to me, “I’m so impressed that you went after your dream, that you’re going after your dream.” I think you have to ask, is it worth it? Is it worth it to try? Is it worth it to answer the what-if question for yourself? Because here’s my big thing, I think the cost of, I call it, living in should, shoulding yourself, if you’re constantly saying I should stay in my career, I have all of this wonderful stuff, it’s okay to be grateful for what you have and want more. It’s okay. In fact, I think it’s normal.

Living up to our highest potential is– If we’re talking Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, achieving your highest potential, self-actualization is the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. It’s at the top of the pyramid. I think so many of us are living in what’s comfortable, and that’s the cost of living a should life is you could look back on your life with regrets. Should, it’s obligation. It’s shackles to me. We’re so shackled by what’s comfortable that we’re not willing sometimes to take risks. You have to ask yourself if it’s worth it to you, if the comfort and stability is worth it to you to potentially have those what-if questions and those regrets.

Lindsay: Yes, I totally agree with you. I cannot leave this earth with what if. Now that I feel like I’m not living that should life, I’m doing my passion. If I were to die this instant, which hopefully won’t happen, I would say I gave it my all. I did what I felt like I needed to do. Of course, I would want to have more time, but I went after that. Had I not done that, I would’ve been one of those older people that said, “Oh, what if?” I love how you brought up there, Ellyn, that some people weren’t onboard with it at first, some people were freaking out.

I was the same way when I told my parents, “Hey, I’m going after this coaching thing.” My mom, I remember saying that was a joke. It was this huge blow up, and she was not supportive of it. Now, years later, they are very supportive of it in their own way. They’re not going to ever come out and say they were wrong. I hear that a lot from women too that I speak with, is that, “Oh, my husband’s not onboard,” or my parents or this or that. It’s like, it’s not going to be easy. Nobody said that this is going to be easy to do it.

What I keep hearing you say and I would agree with, Ellyn, is that it’s not going to be easy, but the feeling is so strong that you have to do this. You can’t ignore it anymore because, like you said, with you, and I was the same way, your physical health suffers, your mental health suffers. It’s like, “What’s the cause of this?”

Ellyn: Yes. Oh gosh, I have two things to rip off of that. When it comes to starting and the fear behind that, because there will be fear, I do not believe in fearlessness. I don’t think that exists. We have a reptilian side of our brain that’s very primitive, that is constantly thinking protection, protection, survival, survival. That’s where our fear comes from. That fear will never go away, but to mitigate that fear, if you have a nagging calling as you called it earlier, Lindsay, if you have a nagging calling, do yourself the favor and just try. I’m not saying quit your day job cold turkey.

I’m not saying do that. Start it on the side. That’s what I did. If I’m being fully transparent, I still have a day job. I’m still building up the business on the side. If you do that, if you give yourself the opportunity to just try, just dabble, just do the whole side hustle thing, you’ll start to figure out, is this more fulfilling than what I’m doing? Am I willing to take the risk to feel this fulfillment, this passion, this enthusiasm full-time? Try. Just start. Give yourself that gift. Say yes to yourself. Say yes to the dream. Let yourself try and see where it goes. You may end up hating it, and then problem solved.

]You also may end up absolutely loving it and not being able to let it go just like Lindsay and I have experienced here.

Lindsay: Yes. This brings me to a point I want to put on here, Ellyn, is the last interview episode I did on this show before Ellyn, I forgot what number episode, I think it might be episode 10 or 11, is side jobs. We talked all about that. If anyone’s listening and they’re like, “Okay, I know I want to do this, but I want to do it in a smart way,” go listen to that episode because Katy, who I interview on there, talks all about side jobs and how to do this really smartly.

Ellyn and I are not saying here, quit your job, say peace out and be dumb about this, we’re saying, start to follow that, start to listen to that, start to think, how can I tap into this desire, this passion that is brewing inside me? Right?

Ellyn: Yes, 1,000%. Then from the perspective of support, you were talking about people were saying, “Oh, my husband or my boyfriend doesn’t support what I’m doing,” or, “My parents don’t support what I’m doing.” Again, they’re trying to protect you but this is crucial. This is what I’ve realized, is, we so often catch ourselves going, “Well this person doesn’t support me.” Have you ever asked them to, actually said the words, “I need your support”? Have you ever told them what support looks like? What you need from them. I had to have a conversation with my parents about the fact that I do not appreciate when they refer to coaching as not a real job, because they did that.

I had a very pissed off look on my face and I just had to be like, “Okay, can I say something? I don’t appreciate you referring to this in this way because this is a real job. Here are a dozen examples of people who do this. I work so hard in my business and just because it’s not bringing in the money that you may want me to be getting or the benefits or the 401(k), whatever, qualify something as a real job, doesn’t mean it’s not a job. If you want to say traditional job, okay, I can understand that but do not call what I do not a real job.” I had to have a very, very– it was a difficult conversation to have. I didn’t want to have it, but I had to have that conversation with them.

Lindsay: This is what I think is so important when you’re making these choices, you’re fulfilling this calling, you’re doing something, what I call is more authentic to you, letting go of society’s boxes and the should. This is why you’ve got to have a really strong mindset, you’ve got to know the tools to get through it, you’ve got to know how to set boundaries just like Ellyn was staying there, in a loving, firm way, because otherwise, your mind will naturally eat you alive and the doubts will creep in, the criticisms will creep in and you’ve got to be essentially bulletproof in a lot of ways. Don’t you agree, Ellyn?

Ellyn: Yes, and it’s not easy, but surround yourself with the support systems that you need, if you don’t have them. I joined masterminds. I have Facebook groups that I’m plugged into with a ton of other women entrepreneurs. It’s so fun because they live all over the country but whenever they’re in town, we connect and we go out for a drink and we chat. I’ve gotten support that I didn’t have sometimes in my life from these other places. If that’s what it takes for you, I highly suggest you do the same.

Lindsay: Agree. You are who you’re around and what you’re being fed.

Ellyn: Amen.

Lindsay: One question I have to ask you, Ellyn, is, a lot of women, we are conditioned to ask for permission for things. Am I allowed to do that? Can I speak up? I’m not sure. Granted with each generation it’s getting less and less, but where we are with a lot of women right now in their 20s, 30s and older, we have all had this conditioning of little girls need to sit there and be quiet and look pretty and they need to ask for certain things. This is a lot of the reason why I think a lot of women are doing these should lives. You tell me what to do, big, strong person, usually a man. How can we stop doing that? How can we stop asking for permission? What are your tips?

Ellyn: That’s a really good question. I always think of when you’re asking should, I think the big place to start is pay attention to your language. Pay attention to those times when you’re saying should to yourself. My clients, they always see the look on my face when they know they’ve said should. I start smirking and I’m like what did you just do? They’re like, “I said should.” So, really pay attention to your language. I think that’s step one.

Step two is to ask yourself, are you using a disempowering should or are you using an empowering? What I mean by that is what you’re saying you should or shouldn’t do. I should stay quiet. I should ask permission before I speak up. Is that coming from a place of trying to live according to somebody else’s values, trying to live according to these stories that you’ve told yourself about what society thinks of you? Is it disempowering? Is it taking power away from you? If it is, that’s a huge red flag of a place that you need to maybe change your thinking or build up your confidence.

I always say there’s three big things that cause us to essentially lose control in our lives or not be able to live the kind of life we want. That’s a lack of clarity, a lack of confidence and a lack of consistency. Maybe for you, it’s going to be if you’re struggling with these disempowering things, it’s going to be building up that confidence or building up that clarity about what your values truly are, because on the flip side of that, you have the empowering should. The empowering should is when you’re saying should but it’s coming from a place of your values.

We’ll use working out because I did get my start in health and fitness. I often catch myself saying, “I should go work out,” but that’s not coming from a place that I should work out because society tells me I need to have a flat stomach and a six pack. That’s coming from a place of I know that I value vitality. I know that I value physical capability. I just feel fricking better when I’ve been working out. That should is coming from me, from my values, from what I want in life. It’s a really, really simple place to start, but paying attention to your language and figuring out when you’re saying should and then asking yourself, is this disempowering or is this empowering? Does that answer your question?

Lindsay: Again, that takes self-awareness. That’s what I keep hearing. Self-awareness, knowing the tools, knowing what’s you, what’s not you, which Ellyn and I can both help you with, because this is what we do. This is it. I feel like we covered so much today. Ellyn we covered when the fear pops up, when you’re making those choices. Obviously, we just talked about asking for permission, how to take life back on their own terms and start to listen to that inner voice and start to really pay attention to how you feel in certain situations, making sure they’re living a life that’s for them and not a should life. Anything else that you feel like everybody should know that’s listening that we didn’t cover yet today?

Ellyn: I would say the only other thing I was just thinking of is from the perspective of self-awareness and this is really very foundational and very core to how I approach clarity with my clients and in my online programs. I think there are two things that it would serve all of us to be so much clearer on. That is, what are our values and what are our priorities? Your values, if you crystallize your values, your values are going to dictate your mindset, they’re going to dictate your beliefs, they’re going to dictate your behaviors. That right there is going to show you so much especially about where your shoulds, Oh gosh English, conflict with someone else’s shoulds. Knowing your core values and I love working through this with people, it’s actually our current topic in my monthly academy right now, is going through core values and figuring out what yours are.

Then I think once you know your core values, also knowing your priorities is going to be really important. We all talk about work-life balance. I frankly think balance is bullshit. I think it’s not about balance, it’s about priorities. It’s about what you believe are priorities in your life. Once you establish what those are, you can start to question the shoulds a lot more, because for me, my priority was not school. My priority was my health and my happiness. It wasn’t about getting the initials after my name. It was about chasing fulfillment and passion in my life.

Those were the priorities for me as opposed to these other things. So if you start any place, once you start paying attention to your language to help you conquer that fear and also really help get very, very clear on what do you want and what’s important to you, I think core values and priorities are a great place to start.

Lindsay: What a great tip to walk away with. To start to get into action, look at your values, figure out what your priorities are. I completely agree with that, Ellyn, completely. Oh my gosh. Thank you so much, Ellyn, for sharing your story with us today, for giving us all this great information, you delivered in a high value way. I so appreciate you coming on. Where can everybody go and find you and learn more about you?

Ellyn: I’m coach Ellyn everywhere. I love Instagram. Instagram is my jam. I have potentially very awkward but very fun Instagram stories. So @Coach Ellyn on Instagram. I am also on Facebook. I don’t use Facebook as much as Instagram but also I’m Coach Ellyn on Facebook as well. Then coachellyn.com is my little home and my happy place. You can see the blog there. We didn’t even get into the travel piece of my story, but you can see all of the traveling I did particularly in 2018 there. Of course the podcast is found at coachellyn.com as well.

Lindsay: All right, my friend, that is my interview with Ellyn. I hope it inspired you and woke you up to potentially living life differently. I must say on the other side of not living a should life anymore is pretty awesome. Was it scary in the process? Absolutely. Does it still get scary sometimes? Absolutely, but like I said in the interview, I know I will live a life of no regrets and I will leave this earth one day and say, “Yes, I did it all.” Believe it or not, you can create financial abundance going after what you want.

There’s so many beliefs around not being able to make the money you want. It may have been triggered there by hearing that Ellyn is still pursuing coaching as a side business but that’s just where she is in her journey. Eventually, she may get to the place where it is her full-time gig. Just know you can do this in a smart way, you can do this in a very awesome way, but you must look at your beliefs that may be keeping you stuck. You must have the tools to help you get through that, otherwise, it can be a very, very rocky ride.

Reach out to me or Ellyn to help you, and of course, come back to The Become An Unstoppable Woman podcast for our next episode. On our next episode, we’re going to be talking about productivity and specifically, we’re going to be talking about how to boost your energy to be more productive. We’re going to talk about something called the invisible to do lists that you may have never heard of before. I encourage you to come back and listen in when that episode goes live on August the first. All right, my friends, until next time, please keep in mind that you are only as unstoppable as you believe you can be, so believe in yourself. You got this.