Ep 16: Ending The Year With Gentle Discipline

If the internet feels too loud and your goals feel heavier than they should, this conversation will feel like a deep breath. I open up about chasing “overnight success,” getting stuck in comparison, and why forcing growth nearly smothered my creativity and connection. Instead of another productivity overhaul, I’m choosing gentle discipline, smaller promises, and slow growth that I can actually live with.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with someone who needs a softer approach to growth, and leave a review so more people can find this space. Then tell me: what’s the one habit you’ll protect with the two-day rule this week?

Chapters

• 0:00 A Quick Year-Mixup Disclaimer
• 0:25 Reframing The Show’s Purpose
• 1:00 Striving, Burnout, And Comparison
• 2:42 Trusting Your Voice Without Experts
• 4:13 Too Much Advice And Noise
• 5:15 Choosing Connection Over Perfection
• 6:03 Finishing The Year With Intention
• 7:19 Redefining Discipline With Grace
• 8:16 The Two-Day Rule Explained
• 10:31 Taking Pressure Off For Longevity
• 11:45 Setting Realistic Non‑Negotiables
• 13:18 Journaling And Visualization

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

I just want to give everyone a disclaimer before this episode. I refer to 2025 using 2024 probably like six times. The only way I could think to fix this without going in and changing each one is to give everyone a disclaimer that when I say 2024, I am referring to 2025. Apologies and enjoy my blunder.

SPEAKER_01: 0:25

I am your host, Liz Bachman, and tonight I am doing the episode a little different. I'm filming and recording in the evening, which I normally don't do. I normally record during the day. I'm not a night owl at all, but I've been doing a lot of reflecting on I am me and what I want I am me to be and the impact that I want it to have and the connection most importantly that I want to make with people through IME. And I realized that I want to share my lived experiences and I want this to become a safe place for people to be vulnerable and to cry and to laugh. And I kind of realized all that because I have gotten in this really intense striving cycle. And I'm I'm quickly heading towards burnout. And I want this to be a success, but I want it to be an overnight success. And that's just not how it works. And in that, I'm missing the joy in the creation, right? I'm missing who I'm talking to. I'm missing the connection piece, I guess. And I'm researching and I'm comparing myself to these YouTubers and these podcasters that one have been doing this for years, and two, they they're giving all this advice and stuff, but it's advice from the life that they've lived. And I'm trying to take that advice and research it and turn it into my own life. And it's not that it's necessarily bad advice, but it's more opinions and information and knowledge. And if you're an overthinker like me, like if we talked about anything in the last episode, it's more of what I need to do to fix me. And ultimately, I'm not broken, and you're not broken. I wanted to just kind of talk about what my goals, what my plans are for the rest of 2024 and how I'm I want to get out of this striving because I've spent a lot of my life striving, trying to crack the code, so to speak. I've felt a lot in my life, like I'm just outside, right? I'm just outside of the end group. I'm like trying to crack the code to get to the end group, whatever that is. And I don't want to strive anymore. And that's not me saying that I don't have goals or dreams or things that I want, but life is happening all around me every day and missing it because I'm so wound up and spinning my wheels, trying to get to what? I don't even know. I don't know if anyone can relate to that, but I just want people to know I am very much trying to figure this out as I go, creating these solo episodes on this platform because that's been a huge fear of mine, honestly. I've felt like I can't do this on my own. I need to be interviewing guests in order for this show to work. Instead of just sharing what I have to say and trusting that what I have to say is good enough. You don't have to be an expert in something for you to add value to someone. I'm not an expert in really anything, honestly. But I know I'm good at encouraging people and I know I'm good at caring, and I know I'm good at relating to people. And if people feel like the world is too loud and the voices are too loud and the opinions, God, the p there's so much, right? So much advice. And I feel like it's too loud. I feel like I'm spinning out with all the advice and and how we should live our lives and what we should do in our daily routine and our morning routine and our evening routine. And I know some people are really good at filtering through all that and taking what they want and letting the other stuff go. But people like me who really want the right answer because they want to live the right way, air quotes, air quotes, right? There isn't a right way, but they want to do everything by the book. It's exhausting, constantly getting advice. And it the advice contradicts, right? I mean, we see this a great example is diets. Diets contradict and and um and they contradict each other as to what's the best diet and what's the best for your body and all that. And so I just want I and me to be a place where we can figure it out together, where we can mess up together, where I can be honest about what's going on in my life because I do want to grow and I do want to evolve. It's not because I'm not okay right now and you're okay right now. So yeah. My episodes typically I've been like researching them and trying to come with like some great whatever, but but I don't want to do that. I I want to be vulnerable and share and talk with you because there's people out there that are going through the same exact stuff, and that's what I can give. I can give my vulnerability and my honesty, and I can give you my attention and let you know you're not alone. So I'm gonna keep trying to be more authentic, more and more authentic in these these episodes. And as time goes on, I know those layers will peel back more and more. But one thing I wanted to talk about and just kind of how I want to end 2024 because we're towards the end of October. I keep saying 2024. Sorry, 2025. I even did that in my notes earlier when I was like writing notes for this episode. But I just want to talk about how I want to wrap up 2025 because a lot of times we we get to the end of the year and we just kind of are like, yeah, I'm just gonna rock out, enjoy the holidays, and then January 1st, I'm gonna kickstart it. And I don't want to do that. I don't check out. I have a lot of things that I'm doing right now. And and I would rather finish 2025 strong and and feeling really good going into 2026 uh versus feeling like I just kind of like checked out in October and I'll check back in in January. I definitely have fallen off with some discipline. And I know discipline is not our favorite word, it's it's not my favorite word, but I'm trying to shift my energy and how I feel about that word. I don't think discipline is a bad thing. I know like you hear that saying, like discipline's the ultimate form of self-love. So I'm trying to shift how I approach discipline. And also I can really, if I'm not air quotes disciplined or I'm not following through on something, I can really beat myself up over that, right? And I think also giving myself some grace. Recently I learned about, I don't know if anyone else has heard this, but like the two-day rule. And I thought that was really cool. So essentially what it is is if like you say, I want to do some form of movement or I want to practice the piano, I'm using my own examples for the next 30 days. I want to practice the piano every day. If you miss one day, that's okay. You just can't miss two days. And I think that's really helpful when we're trying to string together consecutive days of implementing something because it's really easy to like miss one day. Life happens, right? Maybe one day a lot of stuff was going on in your life that was outside of your control and you didn't get to the gym or you didn't do the the thing that you wanted to do, journal or practice the piano or whatever. And then you're like, well, I broke my streak, screw it. The two-day thing is great because it's like this built-in thing in our brain where it's it's like, no, I missed a day, but I'm I didn't miss two days, so it's okay. So I'll just jump back on tomorrow. So I don't know, it's something that I'm trying, and maybe that would help someone else if they haven't heard about that. But the the big things I'm doing ending this year is one, I'm trying to calm the F down because I have gotten into this crazy, like feeling this intense pressure and anxiety that I'm putting on myself to make I am me grow. And that's not healthy, and it also completely ruins the creativity and the expression and the connection of I am me. So I'm trying to actually take some pressure off. I want the longevity in this. So if I want the longevity in this, then I have to go slow, right? That slowness is what will build longevity in this, and I can learn to fall in love with this process in different ways. The other things I'm doing to end this year is one, trying to set reasonable expectations because I am great at being like, I want to do this, this, this, this, this, this, this. And it's like, babes, win. You you have a 40-hour job. I'm doing these videos, which takes up time. I'm working out, I have a family, I have friends, you know. So it's it's also like setting realistic goals for myself. I'll give people my things that I'm trying to do. I call them like my non-negotiables that I'm trying to do daily. This is not for other people to take these and make them theirs. Sit down and ask yourself what what would be good for you? What, how do you want to end 2025? I am trying to do better daily. I'm trying to have some type of journaling. It doesn't necessarily have to be at a time of day. I think that just sets me up for failure and I immediately feel negative and bad about that. I don't have to journal first thing in the morning. I don't have to journal last thing before I go to bed, just at some point in the day, if I'll stop and just journal my thoughts. I know other people might be like, oh, there's a reason you should journal in the morning and at night, no, I don't care, honestly. I this is about what works for me. The other thing though is visualization. I talked in a few episodes back, the four mantras that I'm visualizing, and that does really help. I can tell it's helping me rewire my brain and the the story, right? We all have a narrative that we feed ourselves and the story that I've been feeding myself for a long time, really trying to uproot that and change that and shift that. And the visualizations really do help. So I do try to do those in the morning because of the theta, beta waves, whatever. I don't know. I y'all know what I'm talking about, right? Like our way, our brain waves be special in the morning and the evening. Anyway, so I either do it first thing in the morning or I do do it last thing before I go to bed. And that does feel really good. It does zen me the f out when I do those visualizations. I'm also trying to practice piano daily. Like I said, giving myself that two-day rule. Piano is something that like I I'm very beginner at piano, but uh it's something that I really want to get a lot better at. And I've been pretty like consistent and by pretty consistent, like four days a week I've been like practicing piano, but I would like to get where I'm spending like 20, 30 minutes daily, and there's really not a reason I can't be. Um, and I am gonna steal the 75 hard one. Um, I'm not doing the 75 hard, but I do want to read uh 10 pages of a book a day. Again, I don't put a time on that. There's just a lot of books and a lot of stuff that I do want to learn. And whereas binging uh binging videos trying to learn stuff from people's advice versus reading a book that was well researched and thought out and founded, and it's slower and it's it slows us down, right? It's also not technology. It's it's sitting with a paperback book. There's just it's a completely different energy for me reading 10 pages of a hard copy or paperback book versus watching a YouTube video on that same information. And the, oh, and then the last thing, the last thing that I'm trying to do is movement. I am really proud of myself. Um, this past year, I I've weight trained my whole life, but I've started really falling in love with movement. And I think like I'm 30 and I don't, I'm not old at all. I'm not claiming old or anything like that. Like I am young, but my body responds differently, right, than it used to. It doesn't bounce back as easily as it did at 18, obviously. So falling in love with different types of movement and moving in different ways and walking, and not so much about taxing my body and destroying my body, but trying to just move my body for like 30 minutes to an hour every day. And I've noticed there's there's a huge, huge difference in my mood when movements involved in my day and movements not. I get kind of grumpy, not gonna lie, get a little crotchety when there's no movement. So yeah, all these things that I'm trying to implement daily and hold myself accountable to, what's really beautiful about them, my non-negotiables, is I'm still implementing them with the two-day rules. So if I miss a day, I don't feel like a failure because I'm like, oh, well, I'll do it tomorrow. It gives myself a little cushion because sometimes it doesn't happen. Life happens. And I think with discipline and trying to shift my approach to have gentle discipline with myself. Like I want to be a disciplined person because I do love myself and I want those things for myself, but not to the extent that I'm trying to get it right and I'm destroying myself in the process. Anyway, yeah, this like idea of gentle discipline, which will lead to consistency, it's just stuff that makes me feel good and accomplished. It's stuff that I can control, that I can do. It doesn't have anything to do with stuff that's outside of my control. And that's just that's the stuff that I've kind of like set up for myself on how to in 2024. Of course, the other thing is I still want to consistently for the rest of this year, consistently post one episode a week on this podcast slash YouTube platform, however you consume this content at some point. That'll be whatever. It's always fun to piece these episodes back together and editing. I don't know if what I said just was of any value, but I always want this to feel connected and like you and I are just together. And if you have things that you want to do before the end of 2024, like a daily goal, please hit me up, let me know. Cause like I'm interested. I want to know your goals and your plans and your dreams and your ambitions because that's the point of this, right? The whole point of this I am me platform is cheering each other on and growing together. And yeah, those are the people I want to attract into this platform or into this whatever, this ether. Anyway, I hope this episode was beneficial. I hope that you felt connected and that it felt safe and you felt held in some type of way as you listen to this episode. I can't wait to talk to everybody in the next one. I love you guys, and I hope everyone has a beautiful evening or rest of their day!